FRANKFORT, Ky. – The state school board on Wednesday scrapped a plan to teach students about an alternative to the calendar terms B.C. and A.D., which carry religious overtones.
The board, with six new members appointed by Gov. Ernie Fletcher, reversed a decision two months ago that had sparked a religious debate in Kentucky.
The traditional B.C. and A.D. designations mean Before Christ and Anno Domini, Latin for "in the year of the Lord." The board on April 11 adopted curriculum changes that included teaching the designations B.C.E., for Before Common Era, and C.E., for Common Era.
The change drew criticism from some activist ministers and religious groups. Some conservative Christians complained the change was an attempt to sterilize a reference to Christ.
"It’s part of a larger effort to expunge religious references in our culture," said Martin Cothran, a policy analyst at The Family Foundation, a conservative group based in Lexington. "I think it’s not something that’s coming from regular people. It’s coming from certain other sectors of our society who think that we ought not to talk about religion in our public life."
The new abbreviations would have been added to the traditional B.C. and A.D. references.
State education officials have defended the new terms, saying they are coming into widespread use and would likely show up on college placement tests.
On Wednesday, the school board voted 10-0 in favor of abolishing any reference to B.C.E and C.E. and to preserve the traditional abbreviations.
This just proves that the whole B.C.E and C.E debacle proves that modern secularist are more gutless than their French Enlightenment Counterparts who created a totally new dating system not based on when Christ was born and changed the numbers of days in the week as an attack against the Church. To only change the abbreviation and not the central point that divides the two eras is just plain silliness since their new convention still points to Christ as the central event that brings us into the common era.
Though one of the funniest things I have seen is a Catholic school with the letters Built 2000 C.E. prominently displayed on the facade.
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The first archaeology book I saw that used that dating system (back somewhere in the mid-80s) identified them as being Christian Era and Before Christian Era. When did they change to being Common Era and Before Common Era?
I can tell you that I first encountered CE and BCE in the late 1980’s in … biblical studies!
I have to say that, as it is, AD is often used incorrectly as though people did not know what it meant: 2006 AD instead of AD 2006 (anno domini MMVI). So I am not sure what the secularists are so worried about.
Sorry; I had meant to say that CE and BCE, to my knowledge, have always signified Common Era. “Christian Era” appears to be a sop for those who do not much like “CE” but willy nilly are getting stuck with it.
Jeff,
I would like to see this Ctholic school with “2000 C.E.” prominently displayed on the facade! Sometimes we are our own worst enemies!
I attended training to become an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion earlier this year and the deacon teaching the class use “C.E.” and “B.C.E.”
He also had more good things to say about Martin Luther than he did the Pre-Vatican II era of the Church and openly criticized those who thought Redemptionis Sacramentum was more than polite suggestions, though.
Those with the itch to rename eras would gain some credibility for at least being consitstent if they addressed the days of the week and months. All religious names you know, tsk, tsk.
At least “Christian Era” means something and doesn’t obscure the origin of our dating system. “Common Era” means almost nothing (i.e., “from the point in time from which we commonly count”) and completely obscures the origin of our dating system.
Why don’t we just set the calendar back to Year Zero and not worry about what happened before that. It worked so well for the Khmer Rouge.
I sometime wondered in my younger years when the secularists would target AD and BC. I figured if the wanted to be honest about removing the references to Christ, they would have to try this monumental task. Hopefully it goes the way of the metric system conversion.
The original name changes were not generated by secularists, but by archeologists. I’ve seen the CE and BCE designations in field reports and monographs as far back as the early 1970s. The changes came about due to the increasingly large number of non-Christian archeologists entering the field from the mid-20th century to the present.
I won’t personally use BCE and CE, but I think it’s important to discuss BC/BCE and AD/CE with students. I think it’s a political stunt to only teach BCE/CE to students. You’re putting them at a disadvantage if you exclude one set of terms entirely and never discuss what they mean and why they came into use. They’ll get to college and go to the library for a book on first century China and not understand what the heck AD means in the title. Or a professor will prefer BCE/CE and the student will have NO idea what the professor is talking about. I think when we refuse to discuss religious concepts and terms, and completely teach secular ideas to the exclusion of the religious, we’re putting our kids at a disadvantage. I bet most college freshmen don’t know that “creationism” and “intellegent design” are NOT the same thing, because neither idea can even be BROACHED in public schools because covering that a concept exists and informing a student, because they’ll hear about it in the news or in college is somehow a violation of the seperation between church and state. Sorry. I get testy about this issue.
I’d never heard of CE and BCE until I took archaeology in college, back in the late 80’s and early 90’s. And I was pretty well-read.
I do think it’s stupid to change, though. Nobody objects on religious grounds to AUC (Ad Urbe Condita) in texts, even though Rome was worshipped as a goddess. And we live in a society where AD and BC are the common terms. All this CE and BCE is just foolishness and unnecessary Academese.
My Catholic high school religion teacher assured us that we were incredibly insensitive to Jewish people if we didn’t use the grand new CE/BCE system.
I think most religion teachers (including the Catholic ones) would prefer:
B.N.R.H.
A.N.R.H.
Before Nothing Really Happened, and
After Nothing Really Happened
As that is what the Christ-event is to so many of them.
I, too, was first exposed to C.E. and B.C.E. in biblical studies and theological literature in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.
I was taught at my Catholic school that AD stood for After Death…
I so want my parents to get a refund…
Ironically, all (if not most) of Europe still uses AD/BC. But guilty white liberals here in America are PC zealots that should be burned at the stake!
Whooa, just finished reading Triumph.
Anyways, I first encountered this in 1988/89 in a US History elective in college. I haven’t come across this in any biblical or Catholic texts and I hope not to (or I’ll raise a rucus with my Archbishop).
I have not heard of CE/BCE ever being used prior to the 1980s so I’m not sure about the 1970s of it being used.
Those that advocate CE/BCE claim that Jesus actually died in the year 3 CE (=AD 3) because of a miscalculation. My response was, so THAT’s a reason for changing to CE/BCE? My teacher was speechless.
Are Catholics ashamed of the Gospel and how it has transformed society? The reality of Christ and his message has so converted the world that even time has been changed to reference the Lord of time and eternity.
Sad how a Catholic school or teacher might downplay BC/AD. Sometimes you don’t realize when you’re on the winning side with the winning message. People feel sorry for those who “have not”, and they feel guilty for being one of the “haves”. What they need to realize is that it isn’t something they have a right to minimize. The Gospel was given by Christ for the purpose of proclaiming it. If we stuff it under a rock, we are not being humble – we are being unfaithful.
“BEFORE/AFTER nothing REALLY HAPPENED”
Bwahahaahaaahha!
At that point I think a few people MIGHT start thinking
[if they’ve seen some Shakespeare movie: likely enough; they’re quite popular]:
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks
or some modern translation of “lady” like
[less-oppressed than average
extant female hominoid]…”
Then again, if they decide Shakespeare WAS a Catholic [patriarchal logocentic speciesist]
Christian [no-one-ian], look for him to be dropped from politically correct English
[whoops! That’s… lessee…
Currently Dominant Oppressor’s
Meme Distribution System]
departments.
No Shakespeare then? Not so good. Of course they still might think it was peculiar spending so much effort denying the importance of something.
But, “let us not be hasty!”
Maybe we can keep Shakespeare. Seems hard…
unless…
we can convince ’em he was
*transgendered* or something.
ey – there’s all those cross-dressing heroines…. Portia-who-acquired-the-Black-Robe-of-Infallibility….
See! there is still hope. Now if they’ll only let us answer when they ask for the reason for the hope [nothing of importance. MOVE ON!]
in us…..!!! 😉
P.S. Please read Chesterton’s “Everlasting Man” chapter on the “End of the World”.
about the tolerant compromise of all the Mediterranean multicultures tossing a little incense in honor of the tolerant Emperor.
Of course there was no trouble about that… well, the irritating members of some peculiar Eastern secret society did seem to have some trouble…that tolerant society suddenly began to persecute
“the madmen who told them Good News.”
And pray for the people going to the American Chesterton Society conference this weekend.
Vaya Con Dios.
Yours,
in Christ [who is no-one of importance.
………..I mean it. There’s nothing to see here.
Move on!
No?
H’m,
I hear there’s a new reality show where patriarchal logocentric speciesists
are going to be introduced to
nutrition-challenged free-roaming fellow mammals of the leonine variety…. say, you wouldn’t BE one of those waddyacallum patriarchal speciesists? I mean, have you ever MET a free-roaming leonine fellow-mammal? No? Then clearly you need to be experientially re-educated from your discriminatory prejudice. What? Don’t tell me you are judgmental, too?!’
‘Scuse me a moment. Gotta call on my cell phone:
[makes call on cell phone]
[answer]: “Tolerance and Health Emergency Education Management Agency here. What is your situation please….”
The school with the letters CE obviously thought it stood for “Catholic Education”.
Maybe they were worried someone might pass by and think the building was 4012 years old instead of 6? 😉
How apropos! Earlier this week a group of students at my school were finishing a project with their partners in an school in Iraq. One of the challenges was converting the Islamic calendar to ours- e.g. the Iraqi revolution. The French teacher asked me about the weird “CE” thing she’d seen, and we agreed that we’d leave it AD. After all, even our Muslim counterparts understand we have a Christian calendar. 🙂
BTW, my pagan roomie got her degrees in anthropology and, although she uses BCE and CE in her classes, she usually prefaces it by saying that it’s rather silly. “Why not come up with something original?”
2000 Catholic Evangelists?
The fun thing about the whole BCE/CE thing is to ask a promoter of the idea how they happened to choose THAT particular year as the the year 1 CE. Exactly what event happened then to make it so special, anyway?
I actually had a priest use the term CE and then define it as ‘Common Era’ during a HOMILY.
I honestly thought I was halucinating. I looked around just to be sure that I was in fact in a Catholic Church… and then he did it again!
After Mass I approached him and asked if he really had a problem refering to the ‘Year of our Lord’ during MASS of all times.
He was a bit ashamed and admitted that during the week he was a professor and sometimes the PC academic terms slip into his homilies too.
I knew then that I neede to find a new Parish.
I first heard CE and BCE at a secular university too…sounded weird (the WHAT)? I wondered what event they considered the beginning of the CE? But at least there was no religious reference. Sheesh.
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