Hallelujah!

Well we now know the Christmas number one, and unsurprisingly, it features the winner of the TV show 'X Factor'. What is slightly more surprising is the choice of song. In Alexandra Burke's cover of Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah', we have the first Christmas hit to feature biblically themed lyrics since Boney M's camp rendition of 'Mary's Boy Child' in 1978. After 30 years, it seems that even the ultra-conservative producers of a mainstream pop show feel that religeous themes are no longer a taboo subject.

In our increasingly biblically illiterate society, columnists are falling over themselves to explain how the tale of a broken love affair is told through the metaphor of David and Bathsheba, spiced up with a slightly fetishist twist on Samson and Delilah. Does this herald a return to the Bible as one of our key cultural influences? It certainly shows that a quest for spirituality and meaning is back on the mainstream agenda.

Although Hallelujah is unashamed of looking to the Bible for answers, it seems to come with little hope of actually finding them. The keynote here is ambiguity: although the passion is genuine, the hallelujahs are 'cold and broken'. But it's a start.

Jesus was unafraid of ambiguity, and for much of it's history the church has been willing to live with it too. Maybe Alexandra Burke is the standard bearer for a new era of cultural engagement with Christ; not as a trite 'answer' but as the best place to come with our deepest and most urgent questions. Hallelujah to that!