For years now, we Christians have been told by the secular world that the use of the temporal designations “Anno Domini” (A.D.) and “Before Christ” (B.C.) is utterly insensitive to the feelings of those who do not happen to worship Jesus. Instead, we are all but forced to replace these “offensive” expressions with the more neutral designations “Common Era” (C.E.) and “Before the Common Era” (B.C.E.). At first glance, this shift in terminology appears to be entirely reasonable, given the fact that we live in an age which regards insensitivity as the only sin. I suspect, however, that the Common Era exponents are really guilty of an all-too-common bias.
What I want to know is: Why aren’t people up in arms over the fact that our English weekday names Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are ultimately derived from the names of Norse deities—Tiu, Woden, Thor, and Frigg? Why aren’t Spanish speakers outraged that their weekday names Martes, Miercules, Jueves, and Viernes hark back to the ancient Roman pantheon—Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus? Why isn’t there a movement to expunge the names January and June from our calendars? After all, January takes its name from Janus, the two-faced Roman god of thresholds, while June is named after Juno, the Roman goddess of marriage. For that matter, why wasn’t there a massive letter-writing campaign against NASA, protesting the fact that its Apollo Space Program was named for the Greek god of light?
The world, it seems, has no difficulty acknowledging that the Vikings, the Romans, and the Greeks had a major impact on history and civilization. Why is it incapable of making a similar admission with regard to Christianity?* Why are mythological pagan gods and goddesses given more honor than the real historical Person of Jesus? Why are the proponents of tolerance intolerant when it comes to Christ and His followers?
We Christians need to speak out against this double standard. In addition, we need to stop shooting ourselves in the foot. Do you realize there are even Catholic religion textbooks that use C.E. and B.C.E.? Unbelievable!
Remember the words of Our Savior in Matthew 10:32-33: “Whoever acknowledges me before men I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven. Whoever disowns me before men I will disown before my Father in heaven.” If we wish to be true witnesses of Christ before the world, if we wish to be unashamed in our acknowledgement of Jesus, the very least we can do is to refrain from using C.E. and B.C.E. and go back to the traditional A.D. and B.C. It’s about time we recognize Jesus as the Lord of time!
*I recommend: How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas E. Woods, Jr., Ph.D. (Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2005).