Recently, I’ve noticed a lot of writers have been using “C.E.”/”B.C.E.” dating.

Instead of “Before Christ” (“B.C.”) and “Anno Domini” (“A.D.”– “In The Year of Our Lord”), they use “Before the Common Era”/”Common Era”.

Quite frankly, this curious way of dating history makes no sense to me.

Human societies have always used dating systems based on a foundational event for their society. The Romans used the mythical founding of Rome by Romulus but dated years by who was consul. The Jews and Mayans, among others, used the supposed creation of the world. Christians’ calendar begins from the supposed date of Jesus’ birth, as calculated hundreds of years after the fact. The Islamic calendar begins with the hijra, Muhammad’s journey from Mecca to Medina (AD 622 according to the Christian calendar).

Most recently, the French instituted their own calendar after the French Revolution to mark a break with the Christian past. Not long ago I photographed a stone marker during a trip through the French region of Correze. It was dated to “Year 7” after the French Revolution. Napoleon later reinstated the Gregorian calendar, but for a good decade the French marked their momentous revolution with its own calendar.

Changing the name of any of these dating systems does not change its origin or its meaning. The Islamic calendar is still the Islamic calendar by any other name. Same with the Jewish one. Same with the Mayan one. And, it should go without saying, same with the Christian one.

Now, if we want to show respect for another tradition of dating, we can always indicate the date in another system. So, for instance, you will occasionally see the conquest of Granada by the Spanish Monarchs as occurring in (A.D. 1492/897 H.). Such a statement recognizes that the Christian victors viewed it as year 1492 in their calendar and the Muslim losers as year 897 in their calendar.

But what exactly does changing the date to “1492 C.E.” do? It doesn’t make it un-Christian in any way; it’s still dated from the birth of Jesus. How does that renaming make it any more inclusive for Muslims?

This is my problem with a lot of secularization efforts. They essentially re-name or re-justify concepts coming out of the Western tradition, with its mix of classical philosophy and Judeo-Christian monotheism, and then they call it something new.

But it’s not. It’s just a slight variation on an older theme, usually a Christian theme. Like much of secularization, it piggy-backs off of the semantic and ideological value of the Judeo-Christian tradition while still positing itself as something totally new.

Using multiple calendar systems to date historic events can demonstrate a respect for different cultures and traditions, if that’s the goal. However, if some people want something truly different, then they should create something different. If they’re unhappy with all existing systems, they should start a new calendar based on some non-religious event, perhaps the French Revolution, or the beginning of the atomic age, or the end of the Cold War.

If throwing off the weight of the Christian past is truly the goal, then do as the French did and do it in more than just in name.

Chris Schaefer has lived in all four continental US time zones and on three other continents. He has B.A.’s in Mathematics, Philosophy, and Spanish from the University of Oklahoma and a M.A. in Hispanic Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. Currently on leave from Penn’s Ph.D. program, he lives in Morocco where he studies Arabic, teaches English, and spends lots of time in cafes. He blogs at www.bradley.chattablogs.com

where this article first appeared and it is reprinted with permission.