Faithful in Her Fashion : Pop music: Christian pop star Amy Grant’s steamy new video has some of her religious fans wondering if she’s gone astray.

Has Amy Grant traded in hallelujah for hubba hubba ?

The gospel superstar’s latently steamy video for her recording of “Baby Baby,” a single that has soared into the national Top 10, is more cute than truly saucy.

Still, her romantic play-acting with a hunky young actor is convincing enough that a viewer might almost expect the camera to cut away to a raging fire, just like in the movies of old. . And it’s convincing enough that some of her more literally minded fundamentalist fans of old, who remember her as the undisputed queen of contemporary Christian music, have wondered if something’s up with her celebrated faith.

It wasn’t that many years ago that the singer enjoyed an exceptionally demure image and sang almost strictly devotional songs. If there was a reference to a he in her early material, chances are the pronoun in question was capitalized on the lyric sheet.

The balance has shifted dramatically.

Though faith clearly informs much of the material on her latest album, “Heart in Motion,” love songs abound to the degree that unquestionably romantic themes outweigh religious ones.

What gives?

“Well, I haven’t been called an ‘ex-gospel singer’ yet,” she says with a good-humored chuckle. “I’m not out to change my image or the perception of who I am, really. . . .

“Sometimes artists change direction because of hard feelings. Somebody goes from a pop career to a gospel career or vice versa because they’ve got bad memories of the earlier thing. I like both of ‘em, so I’m not really looking to close the door either way. I’d like the freedom to do both. I don’t know how that’ll fly with everybody else, but it doesn’t seem like a rub to me.”

Grant has been pursuing a mainstream career for some time, the turning point having come in 1985 with her ninth album, “Unguarded,” and the perky Top 10 hit it produced, “Find a Way.” With the help of A&M; Records, which joined the longtime Christian label Word in releasing her product, she escaped the so-called gospel ghetto, finding wide exposure on TV guest shows. (She is continuing in that vein Wednesday night, appearing on “The Arsenio Hall Show.”)

Grant’s commercial momentum slowed with the 1988 release “Lead Me On,” considered by many critics her best work even though it stands as an aberration in her career in its largely acoustic instrumentation and somber themes. Like all her recent albums, it sold more than a million copies, but produced no pop hits, resulting in industry speculation that her appeal outside the not inconsiderable Christian market was limited.

Any such talk has been quickly put to rest by the instant smash status of “Baby Baby,” which was made available to Top 40 radio in a variety of dance-oriented remixes but which in its original form is also gentle enough for the adult-contemporary format.

Though “Heart in Motion” has serious detours--notably “Ask Me,” a song that addresses agnostic questions born out of the horror of sexual abuse--the album’s light, funky tone, set against Nashvillian Grant’s calm, silky vocals, marks a return to the upbeat Grant of old, albeit with earthly love as the foremost concern.

“This album was a definite attempt to find a place in pop music,” says Grant, “and I did that for a few different reasons. One, I have invested so much of my time and creative energy writing contemporary Christian songs, and I was really wanting to try something new.

“It had nothing to do with a loss of faith or change of lifestyle. It’s like a painter that spends a decade painting landscapes all of a sudden to say ‘Oh, a portrait would really rev my engine about now’--just working a different muscle.

“And also, just from a person-to-person standpoint, I think every one of us has valid things to say about what we’ve learned from life, but if you find the same person always saying the same things, I have a tendency to stop listening: ‘Oh yeah, here comes so-and-so, I know their shtick.’ I don’t want to be predictable just like the next person doesn’t want to be predictable.”

Grant trusts, though, that her lyrical values won’t seem overly predictable or familiar set against the contrasting palette of the rest of what passes for wisdom in the Top 40.

“A lot of contemporary relationship songs that we’re all exposed to are exhaustingly self-promoting. And I don’t want to write love songs like that. I think celebrating love is a great thing. I think there’s even a place for those ‘Hey, do you know how great I am?’ and ‘Well, are you gonna be sorry when I’m gone!’ kinds of songs, but even just obvious relationship songs, so many of ‘em tend to be self-promoting. And it just gets old.

“The greatest aspect of loving somebody is the giving aspect, just total, unself-conscious giving. And that’s not really a celebrated aspect of love in songs.”

A mother of two preschoolers, Grant maintains that rearing children is the most direct way to experience such selfless love. And in fact “Baby Baby” was inspired by just such a relationship. Like some of her older material, the lyric has a double meaning, but in this case the he is not a He . It’s a she--Grant’s infant daughter Millie, to be exact.

Though a few of the faithful may cast a suspicious eye on her, Grant feels assured that “Baby Baby” has no less intrinsic value than Lord, Lord .

“I think that Christians, no matter where they are, should be the same person whether they’re singing gospel music or writing and performing a pop album. . . . We just ought to get out there and live life and be true to what we believe, and for those of us that write, just let what we do reflect that. What musical setting that finds itself in kind of becomes a moot point. Same person.”

She pauses.

“Now it’ll be a real shock when I come out with my next album and have Alice Cooper makeup on.”