But at this year's convention in Atlanta, which wraps up today, the scent of secularism is in the air. Mainstream publishers like Penguin and HarperCollins traveled to the conference to sniff for the next big thing in the Christian book market. They haven't just been looking for the follow-up to that odd apocalyptic crossbreed, the Jesus thriller, which found runaway success in the "Left Behind" series. This year, they've got their sights on another publisher's fantasy hybrid: Christian romance novels. Throw away those paper-bag covers, ladies. The fastest growing set of the billion-dollar American romance novel industry is a huge stack of books you can proudly shelve next to your Bible.

Romance novels represent the newest frontier in evangelical Christianity's adventures in pop culture, following entrepreneurial experiments in spirituality that have tackled TV dramas and the burgeoning Christian pop movement, which Newsweek's current cover story trumpets. In "family-friendly" fashion, these novels -- one hundred-plus of which are published each year -- aim to intensify the faith of their born-again readers, or to introduce their less-devout readership to what their authors consider to be the supreme passion. They take the standard romance formula -- a happy-ending story about the passion between one man and one woman -- and add a third and central character. Yeah, you know His name. "God's story is a romance," says Francine Rivers, one of the genre's most influential writers. "The entire Bible is God wooing man and wanting a relationship with man. That to me is the ultimate romance."

But it's not all wine and roses for the hundreds of women churning out inspirational titles. There are the commandments of the Christian Book Association -- the foremost being Thou Shall Not Publish Sex Scenes. For writers who wish to branch out into the secular marketplace, writing celibate romances can obviously limit their mainstream success. There are skeptics who suggest that some of these women are trying to find a niche in a downsizing industry. And there's always the pressure of answering to the highest of critics.

Rivers, like many inspirational authors, started out writing romances for the secular side, selling over 13 million books to become one of the market's most successful authors. But after a surprising conversion experience ("I was sexually active in the '60s, I even had an abortion -- I wasn't expecting it in the least") she found herself contending with three years of writer's block. "Nothing made sense, my writing didn't work anymore," she says. "God shut it off, and said I'm going to use you to speak my truth through dictation."

"Redeeming Love," regarded as the "Anna Karenina" of inspirational romance, was the dictation that followed. It's a retelling of the Old Testament's Book of Hosea, the story of a prostitute -- an unbeliever -- who discovers first earthly and then holy love through the care of a man who relies on God's guidance between the sheets as well as between the pews.

"Redeeming Love" is as steamy as Christian fiction gets. For that reason, Rivers had great trouble selling the book. "It was far too racy for the Christian market," she says. Most of these books are so tight-bun-and-sweater-set prudish it's remarkable they're called "romances" at all. "Inspirational" foreplay usually involves a church and a white dress, and almost always serves as the book's regulation happy ending. You want steam heat? You'll find far more of it in Gideon's book than in one of these.

Maya Angelou reads from "The Heart of a Woman"