I’ve determined there are three effective methods of getting widespread attention: death, blasphemy, and public nudity.

David Blaine and Harry Houdini, generations apart, capitalized on our fear of death by flirting with it during dangerous stunts, and in 1999 (long before Paranormal Activity made grainy realism super-scary), the marketing geniuses for Blair Witch Project pretended to release real life footage of young people being murdered in the forest. Of course, if Jimmy Hoffa or Tupac were to rise from the dead tomorrow, that might be the best stunt ever.

The death trick always works, but blasphemy gets equal press, as Salman Rushdie knows too well.  Lindsay Lohan and her Christ-ish photograph (complete with crown of thorns and arms outstretched) or Madonna’s now-classic blending of Catholic imagery and eroticism are cheap stunts that cost the public millions in itunes and tabloid subscriptions.

Nudity is the fastest way—literally—to get an audience especially if the young women from PETA in lettuce bikinis are dashing naked through Pamplona, Spain in “The Running of the Nudes.” Fashions in various levels of immodesty have made celebrities famous. Even Dennis Rodman got in on that action.  The serpent in the garden was the only one who reversed the formula in every way possible by garnering more attention for getting Adam and Eve to dress themselves than they got for being naked in the first place. And come to think of it, death and blasphemy was part of his tactic, too. What a clever marketer, that Satan.

So now, when I discover that an atheist group on a Texas campus has started their “Smut for Smut” campaign, in which students can trade in their holy texts for pornographic magazines, I don’t know how to react. It’s disgusting and shocking and really, really creepy, but I’m kind of happy about their stunt. Atheism desperately needs this kind of smug, aren’t-we-clever gimmick to point everyone to their vast intellectual reserves.

Don’t misunderstand me. Zealots, shamefully using the name of Christ, have been doing similarly outrageous things for centuries, things that make me cringe and cry for the bad publicity (thank you, Fred Phelps). But true, authentic Christianity needs no yearly gimmicks or strange publicity stunts. The global publicity of Jesus Christ’s resurrection was the most outrageous, shocking, never-before-seen campaign that ever was. Long before the campus atheists were raising awareness, God was raising his Son, and I say there’s no competition.

James Horton, veteran PR executive, believes that most stunts fail if the message and medium don’t reflect each other. In other words, if all you can remember is the stunt—but not the reason behind it—then it was poorly conceived. How beautiful that Jesus’ message AND method is, and always will be life, life, and more life. We’d best get out of his way and not try to run his campaign.

It’s a good thing, too, because I’m terrible at drawing signs on poster board, and most of the Christians I know wouldn’t look good in a lettuce bikini.