Education Pundit: Leftist Revisionists Seek to Secularize Historical Dating System
by Jim Brown
May 3, 2005
(AgapePress) - When it comes to ancient history, apparently B.C. is not P.C. And, these days, A.D. is increasingly out of favor as well.In a growing number of schools the term B.C., which stands for "before Christ," has been changed to B.C.E. ("Before Common Era"); and A.D., the abbreviation for anno Domini or "year of the Lord" in Latin, has become C.E. (Common Era). The more recently developed dating system that eliminates Christian and European references now appears in many tests and textbooks from North America to Australia and elsewhere.
Candace de Russy, a trustee of the State University of New York (SUNY), feels there is something sinister in this contemporary move to supplant the use of B.C. and A.D. as epoch tags with the increasingly prevalent and "politically correct" abbreviations. These are not minor word changes, she asserts -- nor mere verbal fine tuning.
"I see this as part of the liberal Left's systematic secularization of our institutions," de Russy says, "and particularly our critical educational institutions -- namely our campuses and our schools."
The SUNY trustee, who writes and lectures on education and cultural and religious issues, says this "cleansing" of academic language originates with revisionist historians in higher education. In her view it is a kind of censorship, and she believes the effects of such changes are truly devastating.
"Underlying this is an effort to erase from the minds of American children the memory of traditional civilization, including religion," de Russy says. "And furthermore, I don't think American children are being taught to think independently in the face of the efforts by the so-called language police."
The outspoken lecturer and writer contends that, despite the arguments of those "language police," no one has ever actually been oppressed by the use of "B.C." and "A.D." Those terms have been used in public education and in historical and theological research for centuries, she points out; but because those date markers "implicitly refer to Christ," some historians, scholars, and instructors are choosing B.C.E. and C.E. as a "less Christ-centric alternative."
According to de Russy, efforts to eliminate great religious traditions are to the detriment of civilization itself. She says such tactics as substituting the "Common Era" for the "Year of the Lord" are integral to the leftist language police and their "concerted attack" on the religious foundation of America's social and political order.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
