The use of "CE" and "BCE"

to identify dates

Click Here to Visit our Sponsors.

CE stands for "Common Era." It is a new term that is eventually expected to replace AD. The latter is an abbreviation for "Anno Domini" in Latin or "the year of the Lord" in English. The latter refers to the approximate birth year of Yeshua ben Nazareth (a.k.a. Jesus Christ). CE and AD have the same definition and value. 2000 CE = 2000 AD.

BCE stands for "Before the common era." It is expected to replace BC, which means "Before Christ." BC and BCE are also identical in value. Most theologians and religious historians believe that the approximate birth date of Yeshua of Nazareth (Jesus) was in the fall, sometime between 4 and 7 BCE.

The term "common" simply means that this is the most frequently used calendar system: the Gregorian Calendar. There are many religious calendars in existence, but each of these are normally in use in only a small geographic area of the world -- typically by followers of a single religion.

Groups in favor of CE/BCE:

The Ethic of Reciprocity (the Golden Rule) suggests that one should not intentionally cause pain to other humans. We should treat others as we would wish to be treated. Since only one out of every three humans on earth is a Christian, some theologians felt that non-religious, neutral terms like CE and BCE would be less offensive to the non-Christian majority. Forcing a Hindu, for example, to use AD and BC might be seen by some as coercing them to acknowledge the supremacy of the Christian God and of Jesus Christ.

Consider an analogous situation: the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance. The most recent version of this pledge includes the phrase: "Under God." Imagine what a Wiccan -- who believes in a God and a Goddess -- or many Buddhists and strong Atheists -- who do not believe in the existence of God -- feel when having to recite those words. Consider how a Christian would feel if the pledge read "Under Buddha" or "Under Allah."

Although CE and BCE were originally used mainly within theological writings, the terms are gradually receiving greater usage in secular writing, the media, and in the culture generally.

However, there is nothing to prevent a person from defining CE and BCE as "Christian Era" and "Before the Christian Era" if they wish. The Abbreviations Dictionary does exactly this. ₁

Click below to Visit one of our Sponsors:

A group and individual opposed to CE/BCE:

Many Christians, particularly from the conservative wing of that religion, are distressed at the new terms. Some feel that AD and BC have been in use for centuries and that this tradition should be respected. Others see the switch to CE and BCE as just one more example of non-Christian religions being given precedence over Christianity.

At its year 2000 convention at Orlando FL, the Southern Baptist Convention approved their Resolution 9: "On retaining the traditional method of calendar dating (B.C./A.D.)" With reference to the popularity of the CE/BCE nomenclature, it stated, in part:

	"...This practice is the result of the secularization, anti-supernaturalism, religious pluralism, and political correctness pervasive in our society." ₆
	"The traditional method of dating is a reminder of the preeminence of Christ and His gospel in world history."

The resolution recommended that Southern Baptist "individuals, churches, entities, and institutions...retain the traditional method of dating and avoid this revisionism. ₂

Ben Johnson of Hampden Academy in Maine suggests a number of reasons why he prefers AD and BC. Some are:

The term "common era" does not appear in Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.

Better events to choose to represent a major change in human history would be:

	The invention of agriculture, circa 10000 BCE
	The invasion of Europe by Persia in 491 BCE
	The birth date of Alexander the Great who conquered most of the known world in 356 BCE.
	Augustus becoming Emperor in 27 BCE.
	Columbus arrival in America in 1492 CE
	The end of World War 1 in 1918
	The end of World War 2 in 1945.
	The date when Yuri Gagarin entered space in 1959 CE.

The labels AD and BC have lost their religious meaning.

All of the older history books use AD and BC.

The terms CE and BCE both contain the two letters "CE," making them more difficult to distinguish from each other.

There is currently a split between academics -- who generally use CE/BCE -- and the general public who currently use AD/BC. This split widens "...the rift between learning and the common man." ₇

Comments from our visitors:

We probably get more critical E-mails about the use of CE & BCE than about any other single topic, other than homosexuality, abortion in the Bible, and whether Roman Catholics, Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses are actually Christians.

Some statements against the use of CE and BCE, and possible rebuttals, are:

We have used BC and AD for over a thousand years. Why change?

The world is becoming more integrated financially, politically, socially and religiously. A universal calendar notation is needed. Recall that for every Christian there are about two non-Christians in the world. References to Christ and to the Judeo-Christian God offend many of the latter. A universal notation has to be religiously neutral in order to be generally accepted. CE and BCE meet these requirements.

Why cannot non-Christians accept BC and AD?

Imagine how you would feel if the notation were BM and AM where "M" stood for Mithra -- a mythical god-man from Persia on whom the religion of Mithraism was created. (Mithraism was the main competitor to Christianity at one time). You would be offended, and distressed at having to acknowledge such a god-man every time that you wrote a date. Well, this is how a lot of non-Christians feel about BC ("Before Christ") and AD ("Anno Domini" or "In the year of the Lord"). Consider Native Americans, many of whom associate Christ and Christianity with the genocide of their ancestors. Consider Jews, many of whom consider the Nazi Holocaust to have been founded on centuries of Christian Anti-semitism.

"...your writers seem to think it is either trendy to adopt it or foist it on the rest of us, or too gutless to stand up against it. ₃

From what we have learned, theologians introduced the notation because they wanted to follow the Golden Rule and to avoid distressing the non-Christians of the world. Our web site adopted it for the same reason. A very large percentage -- almost a majority -- of our visitors are non-Christians.

Spend your precious time on other areas of learning that need immediate attention.

Since the topic of our web site is religious tolerance, and the main purpose of the web site is to reduce inter-religious hatred and friction, it seems to us that anything that we can do to reduce religious anger is worthwhile. Typing "CE/BCE" doesn't really take much more time than typing "AD/BC". The difference is only one letter. It is worth the investment of our time.

If we are going to switch to BCE and CE, should we not be consistent and remove references to Pagan Gods and astronomical bodies from the names of the day of the week (Moon day, Tiw's day, Woden's day, Thor's day, Frig's Day, Saturn's day, Sun day)?

That would be consistent. The names of the days of the week are based on Paganism. In olden times, Quakers "did not use names for days of the week or months of the year since most of these names were derived from the names of pagan gods. A date such as August 19, 1748 will never be found. Rather it would be written as '19th da 6th mo 1748.' Sometimes this will be written as '6mo 19da 1748.' " _4,5

It would also be consistent to modify the names of the months, which are based on ancient Roman Paganism:

	Janus, a two-headed Roman God,
	Februa, a Roman Pagan festival
	Mars, a Roman God of war and fertility
	Aprilis, the Roman Goddess of love
	Maia, the Roman Goddess of the springtime
	Juno, the Roman Great Mother Goddess
	Julius Caesar, a Roman emperor
	Augustus Caesar, another Roman emperor

September to December are based on the Roman numbers seven to ten.

Fortunately, very few people are aware of the etymology of the days of the week and months of the year. Thus, it does not create much offense. However, "Before Christ" and "In the name of the [Christian] Lord" is obviously based on a single religion.

This web site uses the date format 2002-OCT-9, to avoid confusion. 10/9/02 means the 9th day of the tenth month to some people, and the 10th day of the ninth month to others. Occasionally we get hate Emails from visitors who accuse us of being a front group for the Church of Scientology, because L. Ron Hubbard, its founder, used the same notation. We are not Scientologists.

Our decision:

We use the terms CE and BCE throughout this web site because they are less hurtful to religious minorities. We feel that this outweighs any of the objections to their use of which we are aware. We want to communicate ideas while being civil and considerate to people of all religious traditions. This is compatible with the purpose of this web site, which is to promote religious tolerance. We want to reduce discrimination, oppression and pain caused to people on the basis of their religion. Some people call this being "politically correct." That is their right. But we feel that the use of CE and BCE is the decent and considerate thing to do.

The United States is generally regarded as the most religiously diverse country on Earth. South-eastern Ontario in Canada is generally regarded as the most religiously diverse area on Earth. Using a religiously neutral method of identifying dates is thus of importance both within and without North America.

References:

R.S. Wachal, "Abbreviations Dictionary: A Practical Compilation of Today's Acronyms and Abbreviations," Houghton Mifflin, (1999). Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store
The text of Resolution 9 is online at: http://www.sbcannualmeeting.org/sbc00/
"Letters: Tell us what you think," Cl@ssMate, at: http://ink.news.com.au/classmate/cm_site_yoursay_letters.html
" 'Quaker' dates," at: http://www.illuminatrix.com/andria/quaker.html
The early Quakers, and others in the American Colonies and England considered August to be the 6th month. This is because they used the Julian calendar until 1752. Their year began on March 25th. Thus, March was the first month and February was the twelfth month.
The term "pluralism" is ambiguous. It is sometimes used to refer to religious diversity. Other times, it refers to the belief that all religions are true.
Ben Johnson, "BC versus BCE, AD versus CE," undated, at: http://www.ha.sad22.us/

Copyright � 1999 to 2004 incl., by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2004-FEB-2
Author: B.A. Robinson