An Australian teenager who wore a T-shirt by English extreme metal band Cradle of Filth that reads 'Jesus is a cunt' has been charged with offensive behaviour. Above the slogan a nun is depicted masturbating.

A 16-year-old was arrested on Monday for wearing the shirt and was charged with offensive behaviour under the Summary Offences Act 2005 for public nuisance.

Police conducted inquiries at Australia Fair, where the teen said he bought the shirt, to find any shops selling it.

The Reverend Matt Hunt of the Helensvale Baptist Church said it was sad people spoke about the Lord in such a way: It's fairly common language these days to express sadness, anger or hurt. It's a degrading word to use and Jesus is anything but that. It's like calling white black.

Hunt said using the Lord's name in vain was a serious sin: When someone comes to the point of saying Jesus is the devil or Jesus is 'expletive', the Bible does say be very careful because you're on thin ice.

Gold Coast lawyer Bill Potts said the arrest highlighted Australia's need for a Bill of Rights: One of the great problems with our country is that we talk about rights such as privacy and freedom of speech and the like but they are not enshrined or protected in any way as they are in America.

Potts said charging the teen was 'ludicrous' and brought the law into disrepute: To criminalise juvenile or boorish messages is to bring the law into disrepute. The police are acting like the thought police and censors.

The New Zealand chief censor has banned a T-shirt that shows a sexually degrading image of a Roman Catholic nun and blasphemous language directed at Jesus Christ.

The top, advertising an album for British extreme metal group Cradle of Filth, also used Satanic images.

I have to say, I can't remember seeing a stronger T-shirt than this one, chief censor Bill Hastings said.

Hastings said the office had banned other T-shirts, but the issue did not come up often.

It's hard to know what to do with them, to be honest. If we were to make them R18, for example, does that mean you have to be 18 to wear it or do you have to be 18 to see it coming down the street? So generally with T-shirts it's all or nothing, it's unrestricted or banned, so the medium just doesn't lend itself to an intermediate restriction.

In its decision, the censor's office said a fair interpretation of the message on the T-shirt was that Christians should be vilified for their religious beliefs, and that women, including chaste and celibate women, could not stop themselves engaging in sexual activity.

The Society for Promotion of Community Standards president John Mills praised the decision as bold, morally courageous and legally sound.