How to Avoid Cat-Poster Christianity

Hi, again, everybody. Thanks for joining me today for Faithful on the Clock, the podcast where every incoming text tells you to get your faith and work aligned. I’m your host, Wanda Thibodeaux, and today’s topic is one I really hope you’ll be open to. We’re talking about cat-poster Christianity and how it ties to success in your career. Here we go.

Now, as we get started today, I know some of you out there, especially if you are not in the U.S., you might be wondering, what in the world do I mean when I say cat-poster Christianity? So, to make sure you understand what I’m referring to, let me just give you this quick definition, OK? So, a traditional cat poster is just an image of a cat with some kind of motivational saying on it. So, the classic example would be a little kitten hanging off a tree branch and the poster says something like, “Hang in there!” And a cat poster doesn’t have to be an actual poster you’d hang on your wall, although you certainly can buy those. You’ll see cat posters on social media, too, all the time. But it’s just designed to inspire you and make you feel good. And this idea of the cat poster, you can expand it to images that aren’t necessarily a cat, OK? If it’s a really cute or beautiful, calming image and it’s got some kind of saying on it that keeps you going, that’s a cat poster. So, when I talk about cat-poster Christianity, what I’m talking about is how people will plaster a Scripture verse over some kind of relaxing image. And a lot of the time, you’ll see, like, wheat fields, or a sunset over water, or maybe candles and stuff like that.

Now, I have to be really clear here that I am in no way opposed to people sharing Scripture verses, because I want people to be exposed to the Word. But I have two big problems with cat-poster Christianity, the first of which is that we need to be really careful that people understand the context of the verses that we share. And if you go online and you post this kind of stuff with no real explanation of why it matters or why people should apply it in specific ways, it can be incredibly confusing at best and really damaging at worst. Because people aren’t really seeing the big picture, right? So, if you don’t have the big picture, it’s really hard to make decisions and build habits around whatever the Scripture is. And that’s important because if you want to be successful and do what God made you to do, what do you need? Good choices and good, consistent behavior that’s ethical and beneficial, right?

But the second issue I have with cat-poster Christianity is that it plays right into the tendency a lot of professionals have toward toxic positivity. I cover toxic positivity in depth in Episode 28 if you want more information on it. But a lot of people, they don’t want to acknowledge what’s difficult or not going right, because that feels bad, right? They wanna feel good, so they cling to this idea that if you just stay positive, that’s gonna manifest whatever they want to happen or have a goal for. And they talk about how success just takes the right mindset. Now, there is a grain of truth to the idea of positivity being a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, because if you never believe something is possible you’re not going to take the action toward it. But in the sense that just thinking can create a win, that you can sit back and don’t really have to do anything except have a good attitude, I’m just gonna tell you, that’s not true, OK? So, if you apply this to Christianity, people can completely ignore all the Scriptures they don’t like or that are hard and really convict them to change what they do. And they’ll even use verses to justify ignoring the tough stuff they don’t wanna deal with. And by far, Philippians 4:8 is the verse that gets pulled out the most for this. Just to remind you, that says, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” And I’m just gonna be straight with you here, OK? Yes, Jesus and God are loving and merciful, and there are a ridiculous number of reasons to be grateful. But that verse isn’t meant as a free pass to ignore what you don’t like. It’s meant to remind you that there is balance. Even when there is darkness, there is light. Even when there’s trouble in your life, you have blessings. Even when the world produces things that are absolutely horrific, God still defies them all and creates beauty. It is a reminder to remember God and not get lost in the rabbit hole that negativity can become, just so you won’t give up and you can stand being in the world at all until Jesus comes back. And the harsh reality is that Jesus didn’t preach only mercy and peace. He also preached repentance so that God wouldn’t lose the kids He loves. He told people pretty plainly that they needed to walk away from the sins they were committing. And if all you do is look at the cat-poster Scriptures, the ones that give you the warm, fuzzy feelings, you’ll miss the entire point of why Jesus came in the first place. You miss what He said about faith in Him bringing suffering and how you need to be well-prepared so you can finish what He gives you to do. Yes, we need encouragement. We won’t survive in the world without it. But we have to have the full context of what following Jesus means and Who God is. We have to understand that for as much joy as following Him brings, it has a very real potential to bring hardship into our lives, too. And real faith happens when you know that hardship will come and choose to follow Him despite it.

So, with all that ranting out of the way, when you go online to social media or blogs or whatever, you will see cat-poster Christianity all over the place. It’s everywhere. And the question is, how can you filter all of that and stay grounded so that you don’t lapse into that toxic positivity mindset the way you’re approaching God in your career and work?

The first thing you’re gonna wanna do when you come across a Scripture is, as I’ve been implying, go get the context. Look up the scripture and then go back at least a couple of verses to see what comes right before it. And in some cases, you might have to go ahead and read the whole chapter. If you do that and you’re still a little fuzzy on what’s going on around the verse or what it means, the next step is to go and look up a commentary, you know, somebody who’s already done an analysis for you. And you can get commentaries in lots of places. I mean, I’ve got a super ancient copy of the Matthew Henry’s Bible commentary, but there are plenty of sermons and sermon notes, blogs, articles from Christian publications. Read the footnotes that come in your Bible, OK? And you do want to kind of vet your sources, right? Because they’re not all good. But do that work. Look around and see how other people are interpreting the verse and the story around it.

The second thing that’s really helpful is to look at the Scripture you’ve found in as many translations as you can. Because for starters, let’s be honest. Some translations are a little easier to understand than others. And I know for me, you know, I started out reading the King James version. And I love the poetry and rhythm that version has. But man, the New International Version, I can get through that a lot faster just because it’s closer to how we’d talk today. And I mean, have you ever been trying to understand something, and you study it and you study it, and you just don’t get it, and then somebody comes along and says it in a different way, and it’s like the lightbulb goes on? It’s like, “Ohhhhhh! That’s what they meant!” Right? It just clicks. And sometimes if you read a verse in context in a few different translations, you’ll start to realize where maybe you had some bias, or you’ll see a connotation that helps you think of the Scripture in a much deeper or holistic way. And as you do this, if you’ve got the time, it doesn’t hurt to see if you can look up some of the key words in the verse in the original language and try to understand the cultural use of those words.

The third thing I want you to do around cat-poster scriptures when you encounter them might be the most challenging. But when you find a verse and, you know, it presses all the right buttons to make you feel good, stop and pause. Ask yourself, “Why am I attracted to the promise or concept I just read?” Or to put it a little bit more in the voice of modern psychology, “What need did this verse just trigger for me?” And the reason this tactic is so powerful is because if you can answer that question honestly, you’ll figure out not only what to go to God for help with, but also what why you’ve been resisting the other Scriptures. Right? Like, if you have a need that isn’t met, and that need is super strong, I’m telling you, your brain is gonna want to do everything possible to reject everything that might present a hurdle to fulfilling that need. And that includes cherry-picking Scriptures. If there’s a cat-poster verse you read that makes you feel kinda empty and hopeful at the same time and you find yourself really obsessing over it, this is probably what’s going on. You’ll feel empty because on some level you recognize you’re not experiencing the promise in the verse yet. You still have the need gnawing at you. But you’ll feel hopeful because on some level you conceptualize what it would be like if that need weren’t gnawing at you. So, it’s like, I don’t have it yet, but that’s exactly what I want. Right? So, reflecting and being honest with yourself, it really can help you understand why you’ve been treating the Scriptures the way you have, which is really helpful in getting you to make some changes.

Now the last piece of all this is, because we’re getting into the idea of self-awareness with that last tactic, whatever you’ve got on your plate in front of you, my guess is, if you talk to other people or go online, people are gonna throw some classic verses at you to try to help you feel better. And if you run into that, just ask yourself, “How many other times have I heard this verse applied to a completely different situation?” Because a scripture can be true in terms of the character of God it represents, and of course, that’s not bad. But what you want is to find scriptures that are context specific for the situation you are in. So, let’s say you lose your job, right? And you need to pay your rent and get groceries. Well, the cat-poster verse in that situation might be Matthew 6:25-34, which talks about the worth we have to God and how we shouldn’t worry about getting what we need. But maybe instead of that, you go and read about how God gave the prophet Elijah bread and quail when Elijah was fleeing from Jezebel. Maybe you go read how after the crucifixion, Jesus appeared to the disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and had a meal and fire ready for them on the beach. Maybe you read how God gave the people of Israel manna as they fled Egypt, or you read how Ruth was able to work in the fields of Boaz and eat as much as she wanted, instead of gleaning in another field where men might have harmed her. And if you do that, you don’t just conceptualize the character of God. You get repeated evidence of the character of God. You get to see a bunch of stories about things that happened to real people like you that prove that the cat-poster verse is true. And if you’re really smart, you’ll look at those stories and try to reverse engineer how the people in them got their needs met through God. So, like, in the story of Ruth, she got to Boaz’s field because she decided not to abandon her mother-in-law, Naomi, and because she turned away from the gods of Moab and to the God of Israel. She was loyal to a person she loved, and she was willing to reject what she knew to move forward. And sometimes as you reverse engineer, it’s gonna be about changing your heart, like Ruth did accepting God. But sometimes, it’s gonna be more about specific, practical steps you can take, like when Ruth was incredibly bold and took the risk to present herself at Boaz’s feet. But guaranteed, advice on what to do and how to be is always there. And the incredible thing about this is that, most of the time, your situation is going to be multifaceted, right? Like, say you’re an executive and you’re facing really different market conditions than you did the previous year. Within that, there might be a piece about managing those who work for you that’s relational, and there might be a piece that’s about being a good steward of your resources, and there might be a piece about following protocols or laws. And Scripture will give you evidence and advice on not just one of those angles, but all of them. So, if you can identify, you know, all the little pieces you have to juggle or manage within your circumstances, and you look at Scripture from as many of those perspectives as you can, you’re gonna get really great, comprehensive insights you can put together to make a plan that’s incredibly respectful of God.

To close all of this up, I absolutely believe we need to hear the Scriptures that communicate God’s promises and all the love and mercy He has for us. That’s especially true if we’re a new follower of Jesus or aren’t even sure yet if we want to give our heart to Him. So, this isn’t a call never to share or save a popular or basic verse, OK? I’m simply asking that we then go beyond that so that the popular verses aren’t the only thing we’re sharing or paying attention to. Because God is just too big and too awesome to understand from just a teeny percentage of what He’s said to us. And if you think about it, you don’t save only the pull-quotes from other books, right? No, like, other books, you read the pull-quote and then say, OK, what’s in the paragraph around it? What’s in the whole chapter or the whole book so I really get what this author is trying to say? You don’t look at one small piece and then say, “Well, that part made me feel good, so that must be the only part I have to care about,” or, “Well, I get this quote, so I must automatically understand everything else even though I didn’t read it.” So, if you wouldn’t do it to books like Atomic Habits or Think and Grow Rich or Who Moved My Cheese, why would you think it’s OK to do it with the Bible? You’re not supposed to!

So, if I can just end with that as a compassionate challenge for you to try to go deeper than you might be, I’ll invite you to pray.

Lord, today I thank You for Your Word, because I have turned to it so many times when I didn’t know what to do. And I thank You so much that it’s not just a bunch of mantras, that there’s story after story that can guide us in depth. Bless those who are bringing those stories to all the parts of the world, translating Your message, and spending the time with those who are hungry to understand what You have to say. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

I’m all done for this episode, listeners. I hope you’re inspired to do more with your study of the Bible and how you choose to share it. For our next show in two weeks, I’m gonna be talking about the prosperity gospel. What is it, how does it tie incredibly closely to the messages of the corporate world, and why is it so dangerous to your success? Join me next time, and until then, be blessed.