I’m sure nobody could have failed to notice the furore surrounding the ‘news‘ that the BBC will be replacing the terms ‘AD’ and ‘BC’ with ‘CE’ and ‘BCE’ so as not to offend non-Christians.
This all began with an article written by prominent Christian, Peter Hitchens:
The BBC’s Chief Commissar for Political Correctness (whom I imagine as a tall, stern young woman in cruel glasses issuing edicts from an austere office) was hard at work again last week.
On University Challenge, Jeremy Paxman referred to a date as being Common Era, rather than AD. This nasty formulation is designed to write Christianity out of our culture. Given the allegedly ferocious Mr Paxman’s schoolgirlish, groupie-like treatment of various prominent atheists in recent interviews, maybe he favours this far-from-impartial view.
Apparently some Christians are outraged and Dr Michael Nazir-Ali is quoted as saying:
‘I think this amounts to the dumbing down of the Christian basis of our culture, language and history. These changes are unnecessary and they don’t achieve what the BBC wants them to achieve.
‘Whether you use Common Era or Anno Domini, the date is actually still the same and the reference point is still the birth of Christ.’
Now George Carey has waded in with his own article all about this in the Daily Mail:
So why does the BBC wish to challenge and, we assume, discard this ancient usage?
I always try to be fair to those whose views challenge my own, so let us listen to what the guidelines say: ‘As the BBC is committed to impartiality, it is appropriate we use terms that do not offend or alienate non-Christians.’
It goes on to suggest that BCE/CE [Before the Common Era / Common Era] are ‘in line with modern practice’ as a ‘religiously neutral alternative’.
There is something particularly invidious about their reasoning. While it is true that references to Common Era are to be found in many academic texts, such a usage is by no means widely understood or used in Britain and many other parts of Western Europe.
And here’s Revd Peter Mullen:
No one should be surprised that the BBC has stopped using the abbreviations all us have always known: BC for Before Christ and AD for Anno Domini – the years of our Lord.
Because the BBC is the very vanguard of the secularizing tendency which has declared itself as wanting to obliterate Christianity from public life and the public discussion of important moral and political affairs.
And Ann Widdecombe:
‘I think what the BBC is doing is offensive to Christians. They are discarding terms that have been around for centuries and are well understood by everyone.
‘What are they going to do next? Get rid of the entire calendar on the basis that it has its roots in Christianity?’ A spokesman for the Church of England said that although both terms were common, BC and AD ‘more clearly reflect Britain’s Christian heritage’.
OK, let’s put this complete embarrassment to bed as swiftly as possible. Let me be clear; this is all spurious tosh, amounting to a paranoid moral panic. This is not the dark forces of anti-Christ at play within the BBC.
Here’s the BBC’s own comment on the matter:
‘The BBC has not issued editorial guidance on the date systems.
‘Both AD and BC, and CE and BCE are widely accepted date systems and the decision on which term to use lies with individual production and editorial teams.’
In other words use whichever you prefer. And no editorial guidance to boot.
If you’re interested in how this total myth began and developed, then I’d suggest the Tabloid Watch blog: here, here here and here.
In fact this story has been rightly awarded tabloid bullshit of the month.
So all in all, this righteous indignation and moral outrage from some Christians, is not only misplaced, but thoroughly shameful, and once again gives the impression that Christians are paranoid, whiny, dipsticks.
It really gets me down.
