So there's this guy on Instagram who's been pretending God is real to see if his life improves, if he becomes happier, etc. I've seen a bunch of people join this trend/challenge, and they've been raking in the views. All the videos start with them saying "Day One of pretending God is real to see if it makes me happier!" The average video has about fifty thousand likes, give or take. Clearly it's a topic people are interested in.

However — and I'm open to my perception being incorrect — the guy who started the trend makes it seem like he's an atheist trying to find his faith through brute force, when in reality, you don't have to scroll down far to see from his previous videos that he's already a Christian. He has a post praising a friend for sharing the good news, telling people that Jesus loves them. Doesn't sound like an atheist to me.

If that's true, what's the point of all this?

My guess is that this is a new form of evangelism he's trying out. Forget theology, forget apologetics, let's just focus on the tangible value one gets from religion and convince people it's worth it, even if they can't logically believe.

There's been a few other people joining this trend who seem to be actual atheists/agnostics trying to find God. Now whether they're doing this genuinely or just for views remains to be seen, but it's possible this trend is having a real effect.

Or is it? Isn't this just more of the same old evangelical strategy of tricking people into heaven? Trust me, I'm familiar with all the strategies to lure people into church. "Hey, so I'm hosting this coffeehouse event. There's gonna be live music and free food, you should come check it out!" Why can't evangelicals just be honest about what their goals are? They keep acting like Christianity is some new, cool trend to attract people to Jesus, when they're the ones who have destroyed Jesus's reputation in the first place.

I know this is a very Western view of Christianity, but it's where I exist, so I'm gonna talk about it like so. Evangelicals have this hilarious problem where the way they view Christianity is so different from the way they've unintentionally molded it to be. Let's be real, you don't have to look hard to find an atheist who thinks all Christians are weird, far-right, Trump-loving Republicans. And many Christians have doubled down on it! At most, they'll maybe admit that Trump is a bad guy, but he's "done so much good for Christians as a whole!" I'm literally quoting a pastor I met a few months ago.

Now you have this middle ground of Evangelicals who don't like Trump, AND they're challenged with the task of overcoming the optics of far-right Christianity in order to bring people to the church. So what do they do? Well, this Instagrammer has one solution: focus on practicality. Who cares if God is real or not? If it changes your life for the better, why not believe?

Here's my prediction, and I'm pretty confident in this: you'll get a bunch of people into the church, save a percentage of their souls, but most will walk out once they realize they're still unhappy and unfulfilled because you're selling them a fake faith. You're not introducing them to Jesus, you're introducing them to Dr. Phil. Jesus is NOT a self-help guru, and the only thing worse than turning people away from Jesus is introducing them to a fake one. But hey — at least now you're a Christian influencer.