Christian Fiction Classics

A Fruitful Vine by Carrie Bender
This first in Bender's Miriam's Journal series introduces Miriam, an Old Order farmer's wife and mother whose concerns are her ailing husband, Nate, her children, sickness in the community, and those who move away to the larger world, sometimes leaving behind the old ways forever. The considerable charm of Bender's series lies in its intimate portrait of Amish life, completely free of the romantic gloss the mainstream culture assigns it. Bender is herself an Old Order Amishwoman. The sequels: A Winding Path (1994), A Joyous Heart (1994), A Treasured Friendship (1996), and A Golden Sunbeam (1996).

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
Cather would probably hate being placed on a list of gentle fiction, but Death Comes for the Archbishop is certainly nostalgic, even mellow. It's a biographical novel about the first Bishop of Santa Fe, Frenchman Jean Lamy. Sent to New Mexico in the late 1840s, Father Lamy is a cultured hero who is nonetheless capable of pulling a gun and rescuing a damsel in distress. More importantly, he works tirelessly to improve the lives of his impoverished Hopi parishioners and to weed out corrupt priests. Cather weaves her appreciations of New Mexican landscapes, Indian lore and Father Levy's spiritual maturation into an irresistible tapestry.

Ashes on the Wind by John Fischer
A comedy of errors ensues when the ashes of a traveling evangelist's wife and those of the wife of Sam Dunn are mixed up. Sam Dunn, a laconic old fellow, realizes the mistake and chases after the evangelist, but the evangelist may well have murdered his wife, and the police are after him, so he's hard to find. All parties converge in a hilarious revival service where, even though the evangelist is a charlatan, faith prospers. Fischer is best known for Saint Ben (1993), a charming coming-of-age story, but Ashes on the Wind is much funnier.

Joshua by Joseph Girzone
The gentle, almost childlike Joshua shows up in a small town riven with denominational strife, and quietly demonstrates a simple, unifying gospel of love. Simply put, Joshua is Jesus placed in modern times, and Girzone's simple stories echo the gospels. The sequels: Joshua and the Children (1989), The Shepherd (1990), Joshua in the Holy Land (1992), Joshua and the City (1995), Joshua, the Homecoming (1999), and The Parables of Joshua (2001).

Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
The time is 1938 and the place is one of Mexico's southern states. They are undergoing a religious purge, arresting every Catholic priest they can find, charging them with treason and then killing them in a firing squad. Those that aren't caught get married or go into hiding. One such priest has tried to escape through the jungles, villages and plantations. A policeman is after him and shooting a hostage in each village until someone turns in the priest.

Home to Harmony by Philip Gulley
Home to Harmony begins Gulley's Harmony series and features his alter-ego, Sam Gardner of Harmony, Indiana. Sam relates his anecdotal tale in chapters that are really sermons masking as short stories, but Gulley is the funniest writer on the Christian scene, striking a tone rather like that of Ring Lardner. Typical is his tale of the World's Shortest Evangelist, who, to bring home the concept of spiritual warfare, comes dressed in fatigues. Then there's "The Aluminum Years," in which nondescript Sam muddles over what aluminum item to give his wife for their 10th anniversary, and settles on diet soda. The sequel: Just Shy of Harmony (2001).

Hometown Legend by Jerry B. Jenkins
The co-author of the Left Behind series tells a nostalgic football story set in the dying town of Athens City, Alabama, where a wounded hero from the past, Buster Schuler, shows up to coach one last season for the high school. The narrator and Buster's assistant coach is Cal Sawyer, a widower who struggles to keep open a little factory that makes footballs, raise his teenage daughter, and be more sensitive toward the woman everyone in town thinks he should marry.

At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon
The first in the famous Mitford series introduces Episcopal rector Tim Kavanagh and the eccentric members of his parish. Father Tim, in late middle-age, bumbles his way through several small crises, succeeding by the sheer power of his good intentions. But however naive and clumsy Father Tim is, he's also a wise counselor and a steadfast friend. A lonely, enormously sympathetic figure, he almost inadvertently begins a romance with his neighbor, Cynthia, and readers are enraptured. Karon's little town of Mitford is quaint and nostalgic, but a much subtler place than the Mayberry it is often compared to. Like Mayberry, however, it is recognizably American, a place reflecting us as we believe we used to be. The sequels: A Light in the Window (1995); These High, Green Hills (1996); Out to Canaan (1997); A New Song (1999); and A Common Life: The Wedding Story (2001).

Christy by Catherine Marshall
Marshall's famous story is based on her mother's experiences in the Smoky Mountains in the early 20th century. Christy Huddleston, a 19-year-old middle-class city girl, takes a job teaching there, and her boundless optimism brings some hope to the poverty-stricken. Christy's head is turned by romance as well as good works, but in any case Christy is often held up as a role model, for Christian fiction writers if not also for young women, and there's an evangelical award series in her honor (the Christies).

Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
The passengers on the train to Taulkinham show mixed reactions when Haze questions their belief in Jesus.

Love Comes Softly by Janette Oke
Love Comes Softly introduced Oke and virtually founded contemporary evangelical fiction. Set on the Iowa prairie, the story features 19-year-old Marty, who comes west to homestead with her new husband. He dies, leaving her virtually destitute, but on the day of his funeral, she receives a proposal from Clark Davis, a widower with a young daughter to raise. There is real suffering in Oke's story, but it ends in a triumph of faith and married love and is a great favorite among women, along with its sequels.

The Blue Bottle Club by Penelope Stokes
In 1929, four young girls write down their profoundest dreams and ambitions, put them in a blue bottle, and hide the bottle in the attic of a fine old house. In 1994, Brendan Delaney, a TV reporter, covers the razing of the house, and a bulldozer operator brings her the bottle as a curiosity. She finds one survivor of the Blue Bottle Club and from her memories assembles the stories of all four girls. All four stories are lessons in faith, and Brendan slowly absorbs them in a tale that manages to be uplifting without being sanctimonious.

A Room of My Own by Ann Tatlock
Ginny Eide is the starry-eyed daughter of a prosperous doctor in a small Minnesota town when the Depression hits. Soon, the town is torn apart with labor strife, and Ginny makes the rounds with her father in Hooverville, helping the down-and-out. She may never have a room of her own, but she learns how to cope with adversity, and the course of her life is set.