An Amateur Social Analysis and an Appeal to the Prophets Zechariah and Amos

1. X Factor
2. April Jones
3. Jimmy Savile
4. Personal pensions
5. George Osborne
6. Plus size clothes
7. Man United v New…
8. Weather forecast
9. Justin Lee Colli…
10. Cash for gold

OK. I get it that the hot topics people Search for, Tweet at, Twitter about and conduct Facebook dialogues and multi-logues around, are simply statistics of what people are interested in at any given moment. And that they change, and that number of hits isn't the only criterion for significance.

Still. It becomes an interesting way of reflecting what happens to be important to a whole lot of people at the same time. And if the menu, or pop chart, or hit list is a half way accurate reflection of social media activity, and as an index of people's interest, concern, curiosity, humour, it becomes interistinger still!

The possibility that the X Factor might be rigged – that is, a Reality show (which is demonstrably UNreal), might not meet the usual criteria for authenticity, spontaneity and sincerity. Many feel cheated at the thought.

A child is missing, suspected murdered, in one of those evil visitations that refuse to fit our usual categories of moral judgement and human responsibility. As a nation we feel judged by what happens to our children, and it is an important criterion of social criticism.

A deceased DJ allegedly abused young girls over a length of time, in a culture where it is also alleged it was if not condoned, neither was it exposed. And that culture spread well beyond one institution, the BBC, if further allegations are confirmed. Once again if even some of this happened, it is hard not to feel some responsibility.I was a teenager then, but part of a culture where such things could happen. Now truth has to be spoken, hurt acknowledged, and where possible actions brought to the light of justice 

Then there's the concern about personal pensions, the Chancellor's plans to save £10 billion on the welfare bill, after which it gets sillier – oversize clothes, a football match in which one player's elbow connected with another player's head, the weather forecast, an English comedian and how much cash for gold.

I have no idea how to break all that down into a social analysis that would hold water as a critique of how we live our lives today. I leave that to the social analysts. But two of the top three are about vulnerable children and young people being unsafe in our midst. I know it's not a new thing, and anyway the allegations about Jimmy Saville span 40 years or more. Zechariah 8.5 looks forward to the blessing of God when "the streets of the city will be full of the noise of children playing in the street." I'm up for that! I'd pray for that, hope for that, and not give up such hoping. But like Michaelangelo's Zechariah I guess there is much that threatens to overwhelm that hope.

The top Hot Topic is about a TV show that by any measurements beyond money, fascination with celebrity, or lust for fame, contributes little to the end product of a good society where human life flourishes. A society where each person is cherished, has dignity, is invested with worth and offered both the freedom to be and the support of others in becoming mature exponents of that elusive essential we call humanity. Which has the same root as humility – which exists in a different universe from the X Factor.

As for the other exciting topics, well yes, pensions and Chancellors, cash for gold, they are about money. And while the love of money is the root of all evil, that evil is magnified when the unequal world we inhabit draws down ancient warnings from Amos that vibrate down the centuries with the same message of moral peril for societies where luxury and penury co-exist, and when power talks of fairness rather than justice, compassion and, that ancient word of the Hebrew Bible, righteousness. Which we can take to mean when things are right in the sight of God, both the things we do and the things that are.