Now they're wearing religion on their sleeves

If you think Jesus is in you, you might want him on you. And if wearing one of those WWJD - "What would Jesus do?" - bracelets popularized in the 1990s seems too quietly introspective, then you just might want to go bold.

In-your-face bold.

That's the hope of T-shirtmakers and retailers pushing edgier - some would say offensive - graphics and slogans such as "My God can kick your God's butt."

Observers call the shirts part of a sometimes deft, sometimes clumsy, possibly lawsuit-bound move to tap into youth culture and ride what many see as a society increasingly warm to Christian conservatism.

"It is this particularly brand-intense version of Christianity," says James Twitchell, a professor of English and advertising at the University of Florida, Gainesville. The T-shirt push does not come from denominational religions, he says, but from the bottom up. "It is this demonstration of 'I'm a true believer.' "

In chasing brand-aware youths, some shirtmakers simply bend popular slogans - Abreadcrumb & Fish, G.A.P (for God Answers Prayers), Got Jesus?

Others seem to favor a little shock value.

"Even before there was a movie called 'The Passion [of the Christ],' we had a category called The Passion," says Lorri Carter, product-development director at Kerusso, a maker of religious apparel in Berryville, Ark., whose online ads include the tagline: "You have the faith. Get the gear."

One Kerusso shirt inscribed with "Rebel with a cause" depicts Jesus on the cross. "That graphic nature is just to show you how profound [Jesus'] gift was," says Ms. Carter.

More customers, she says, now want to drive such messages home. "There has always been a market for those really strong messages that have graphic imagery," says Carter, who has marketed such shirts since the 1980s. "What's interesting is that those kind of messages are [now] more mainstream."

This more aggressive brand of religiosity is tough to track statistically. Even the picture of Christian shirt sales - regardless of specific content - is murky. Apparel comprises about 2 percent of store-based Christian retail's $4 billion in annual sales, says Nancy Guthrie, a spokeswoman for CBA International, the industry's trade association. But that doesn't include direct online sales from shirt-printers of all sizes - or sales at festivals and concerts.

Carter expresses Kerusso's growth in terms of company expansion: It recently doubled in terms of employees and space.

Sales at Living Epistles, a major Christian apparel company based in Grants Pass, Ore., are "good," says Randy Johnson, the general manager. Its current bestseller: "Lord's Gym," Jesus strains under the cross, and the shirt reads: "The weight of the world's sins. Bench press this!".

Living Epistles' most controversial design last year was one Mr. Johnson calls a "spiritual warfare" shirt, with a man praying in the foreground under the slogan "Razing Hell" and a demon "getting beat up," Johnson says, because of the prayer.

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