

(All photos property of ABC/Disney)

ABC is home to several family-oriented sitcoms, and sometimes they integrate a little Christianity into their stories. The Heck family on “The Middle” are churchgoers (albeit dysfunctional ones) who sometimes interact with members of the clergy, like the singing youth minister Rev. Tim Tom.

In recent weeks, ABC’s Friday night comedies – “Last Man Standing” and “Cristela” – also added a little ‘God talk’ to the mix – and they did it in a way that managed to generate laughs.

First, there was Tim Allen’s show “Last Man Standing,” in which he plays Mike Baxter, a church-going conservative who works as a marketing executive at a store called Outdoor Man. Several seasons ago, the show’s writers and producers decided they wanted the series to be moreproducer Kevin Hench and comedienne Cristela Alonzo, making her the first Latina to create, produce, and star in a network TV sitcom. Alonzo aptly plays a character named Cristela, who is working to get her law degree at a later age than most people do because she took time off from school to help care for her sick mother.

Cristela now lives in the home of her sister, who is married with two kids, and the aforementioned mother. She also interns in a law office with a boss who’s a rich white guy that usually says inappropriate things about Mexicans.

A recent episode (written by Kay Cannon) dealt with the Confirmation of Cristela’s nephew Henry (Jacob Guenther), who asks her to be his sponsor even though she’s not exactly a