Smoking kills, but sin is worse. That’s the message on this month’s poster from an Australian Christian media company. And it’s one that’s got the attention of the secular media – and the anti-smoking lobby.

Malcolm Williams, director and founder of Outreach Media, the company that distributes posters for church noticeboards, says the company designs the posters to get a response.

“We’re trying to produce posters that get noticed,” he says. “Jesus was the greatest communicator; whenever he spoke he said things that were clear, and often provocative. He pushed people to think. He was never bland.”

Smoking has copped some flack in the last few months, with the Australian Christian Lobby’s Jim Wallace losing the Prime Minister’s attendance at the ACL’s annual conference after making comments that linked the health effects of smoking to the health effects of homosexuality.

In a similar way, Tony Abbott has been criticized for repeating Alan Jones’ “died of shame” phrase.

But Williams says the current Outreach poster has nothing to do with the controversy with ACL. In fact, the poster was scheduled and sent to churches as part of a package of posters for the next 6 months in June, well before Jim Wallace’s comments. He says the poster’s message is simple:

“It’s a poster about consequences. The consequences of smoking are serious, but the consequences of sin are far worse.”

The Sydney Morning Herald have had some fun with the poster this week, today claiming that “smokers have finally found an organisation accepting them with open arms: the church.”

But the paper also used the poster as an opportunity to flag the anti-smoking lobby, who’ve taken offence.

“[The poster] is trivialising what is a major cause of death and disease,” the chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health told the SMH. “Smoking leaves everything else in the shade.”

Williams says the anti-smoking lobby’s argument is illogical.

“This is a ‘how much more’ argument,” he says. “If smoking is serious– and it is­ – then the consequences of ignoring God and living in sin are far more serious.

“The only conceivable way for someone to see that this is trivialising smoking is if they are thoroughly committed to the idea that there is no God. And I don’t think the anti-smoking lobby should be taking such a position.”

The smoking poster is by no means Outreach Media’s most controversial poster. “Not by a country mile,” says Williams. And it’s not the only one that’s attracted media coverage.

“We did a poster in early 2007 called ‘Jesus loves Obama’. It went right around the world.”

Outreach Media provides posters to about 100 churches around Australia for show each month on billboards and signboards.

John Dekker from Aspendale Presbyterian Church in Victoria has been using the Outreach posters over five years, hoping to provoke the thoughts of thousands of train travellers that pass by his church every day.

“This month’s poster is very clear. It’s communicating the seriousness of sin, and I think that’s something we’ve lost in our culture,” he says.

It’s not easy to tell if the posters are hitting the mark with commuters, but Dekker says so long as the posters have a clear message about Christianity, he’ll keep using them.

St Peters Anglican Church in Sydney’s inner west has been displaying the posters for the last 12 months.

“There’s easily hundreds of thousands of cars that come past our church each week,” says the church’s pastor Andrew Bruce.

“With so many of them, the posters are a cost-effective, functional way of communicating with that audience. We could get the best website in the world and it would never get 40,000 hits a day, like we do on the side of the road.”

“In the end, I wouldn’t put something up for the sake of a stunt. I’ve got to be able to say that I could happily talk about Jesus and gospel using what we put up.”