Fashionable, cool and holy: religious T-shirts

With everyone and everything getting a makeover these days, it's safe to say that religion has not been overlooked.

Take for example, a shirt produced by online Christian retailer DATOmana, (www.DATOmana.com)which boasts a picture of Jesus looking more like Billy Crudup's character in "Almost Famous" than the son of God. It's called the "Miracle Tour" tee.

"It's supposed to look like a concert tee," says Tom Biggs, president of DATOmana, which is based in Los Angeles. "On the back it has the towns where Jesus preached."

For those less inclined to fully flaunt their faith on their sleeve, DATOmana offers other Christian logos that are a bit more subtle — like "gee/oh/dee" and "hellsucks."

The shirts might ring a bit blasphemous to some, but Biggs says the they're a way for today's young Christians to express their faith in a manner that befits their "cool" fashion aesthetic.

DATOmana recently surveyed 419 18-to-34-year-olds from across the country about their T-shirt tastes. The result: More respondents were willing to wear a Christian T-shirt than one of a secular nature.

When presented with a choice between an Abercrombie & Fitch logo tee, an NBA-licensed shirt or one of DATOmana's shirts, 40 percent of the respondents chose the religious tee, versus 16 percent and 30 percent for the NBA and Abercrombie shirts, respectively, according to the survey. (Word to the wise, though: The survey was conducted online — not a method that's particularly trusted among hardcore survey researchers.)

Biggs says the results show that younger people today are much more comfortable expressing their faith than past generations.

"I think there's a general feeling that younger people have stronger values than when I was growing up," says Biggs. "Their values tend to be things like wanting to get a good job, wanting to be married and wanting to have strong faith, and I think they are unabashed about reflecting that through their clothing and their attitudes."

Of course, not everyone who dons a religious shirt is being sincere about it. Overall, 6 percent of the survey respondents said they would only sport a Jesus shirt to be ironic. The majority of those respondents, says Biggs, were in New York.

"Certainly New York has its fair share of cynics, so I wanted to make sure that we allowed survey respondents to tell us if they were going to wear it as a joke."