"The 'real' instruments of unity

Members of St. Jonah's have greeted the Millenium Development Goals with unprecedented glee. It's quite a shock, really, to see everyone so delighted. At last, they keep saying, the convention has given us "the real instruments of unity." Even their bulletin announcements regarding this endeavour contains this phrase. No one apparently stops to consider that sniffing at the instruments of unity, also known as the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primates Meeting, the Lambeth Conference and the Anglican Consultative Council, is just in the teensiest bad taste. I wish I could say that what they mean is that we all now agree that Jesus was speaking truth when he said, "the poor you will always have with you," but alas, I don't think that's what the MDG-obsessed are thinking. Instead, I suspect they are feeling that they have been given carte blanche in feeding their frenzy of doing-ness, of earning righteousness, and oh happy day, in thumbing noses at historical traditional and what it offers in terms of connection to the larger body of Christ in the world. To think, some of us at some point in our lives, felt this excited about getting to know Jesus.