Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, says it is “puerile and absurd” that the BBC has decided to stop using BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini - Year of the Lord) to date events. These terms apparently conflict with the impartiality of the BBC and are possibly offensive to non-Christians.

The BBC’s ethics and religion committee reportedly proposes using the terms CE (Common Era) and BCE (Before Common Era) instead from now on. A number of senior BBC presenters, including Andrew Marr and John Humphrys, have complained about excessive political correctness and say they will not comply.

Teacup
The Anglican Church said it was another step in the “dumbing down of the Christian basis of our culture, language and history”. Boris Johnson called it undemocratic and cowardly and pointed out that, since Muslims regard Jesus as a major prophet, they are hardly likely to be offended.

In fact, after all the outrage, it turns out to be a storm in a teacup. The story, first printed by the rightwing newspaper Daily Mail, was based on an entry on the FAQ section of the BBC’s religion website which states:
“In line with modern practice bbc.co.uk/religion uses BCE/CE (Before Common Era/Common Era) as a religiously neutral alternative to BC/AD. As the BBC is committed to impartiality it is appropriate that we use terms that do not offend or alienate non-Christians.”

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The BBC has issued a denial.
“Whilst the BBC uses BC and AD like most people as standard terminology, it is also possible for individuals to use different terminology if they wish to, particularly as it is now commonly used in historical research.”

The fear of excessive political correctness is not confined to the United Kingdom. It’s a discussion which regularly flares up in the Netherlands too, particularly around Christmas time when, inevitably, there is a school that decides not to put a Christmas tree in the assembly hall so as not to offend its non-Christian students.

Is the use of neutral terminology so strange, though? There are of course a lot of unanswered questions about the significance of the historical Jesus, assuming that he even existed.

Berlusconi
The idea of using the supposed date of the birth of Jesus to mark the start of a new era was put forward in 525 AD (or CE) by the monk Dionysius Exiguus who had used it in making an Easter calendar. Unfortunately, it was later discovered that he was a couple of years out. It we take the time indicators in the Bible seriously, we can only conclude – as some fundamentalist Christians still believe – that the Creation occurred in around 6,000 BC (or BCE).

Similar objections can also be made to the Islamic, Hebrew, Buddhist and countless other dating systems. Perhaps, as London’s mayor suggests, we should switch to a system based on the Big Bang (it’s now approximately the year 13,700,000,000), the Maya calendar (one year before the End of Time) or the Roman system (year four of the fourth consulate of Silvio Berlusconi).

In case you were wondering, Radio Netherlands Worldwide has no plans for any internal guidelines about the use of BC and AD.

(imm)