Posted by: Blake
April 19, 2006 09:28 AM

Kentucky would have been one of the last places I'd have thought they'd be trying to "remove God". But sometimes I think that it's almost pointless to resist how the world is starting to exclude anything to do with God and Jesus. Doesn't the Bible tell us that there will be a great falling away?

And I've not taken any standarized tests in a long, long while, but I've not heard anyone say that there are new ways that the years are represented on the SAT or ACT.

Posted by: Timothy R. Butler
April 19, 2006 09:45 PM

The thing that confuses me the most is that they claim this is something new. The CE/BCE designations have been floating around for quite awhile now -- perhaps first among those of other faiths (I think I first saw it in Jewish materials), but also elsewhere.

To me, I wonder if it is that big of deal. Few people these days, I'd imagine, know what Anno Domini means. The big point is that it has been 2006 years since the birth of Christ, and that is still emphasized if you switch to C.E. (why is it the common era? Because the common/western era is the Christian Era!).

This could be used for both fun and productive activities: C.E. can mean Church Era, Christian Era, etc. too.

I'll stick to A.D., but it doesn't seem like a big deal. I seem to recall recently running into someone who didn't even know how B.C. differed from A.D.... they just knew "2006." Period.

Posted by: Holly Hobbie
April 20, 2006 05:28 PM

I agree blake,it does seem pointless to resist the worlds exclusions of God and Jesus, When the bible does talk about the falling away of the world in Revelations....In one way its encourageing because it means that the rapture of the church us Christians is getting closer.

I still don't see whats wrong with protesting something as a Christian as long as we still have the few rights we do have as American citizens.....Yes there are those "christians "who go above and beyond and make Christians look like hyprocrites...which saddens and sickens me.

But as a Christian I cannot sit idly by and do nothing,when we are called to wittness and be a light in this world.

Posted by: Anna
April 21, 2006 01:58 PM

It's an interesting idea. Doesn't mean I support it (because I certainly don't), but it's interesting.

Maybe I just missed something (it's a rough time of the semester), but aren't they still essentially using Christ's birth as the dividing point? I mean, even if they change the name, they're still using that event as the point that distinguishes BCE from CE. Unless they want to change things and switch to the Jewish calendar system (which they certainly won't do either), or the number of years since the supposed Big Bang, they're still using Christ's birth as the marker.

Hmmm. It's just interesting. They're changing the name, but they still can't change the event that forms the divider. Oh, sure, they'll come up with some other justification for why they are placing the marker at that point, but it's still essentially Jesus tha tforms the divider.

Good ol' Commonwealth of Kentucky. I'm with Blake; Kentucky was never the place I'd thought would try to switch!

Posted by: David Week
April 24, 2006 09:56 PM

I think that one of the reasons that we are moving away from BC and AD, to BCE and CE, is to make the dating a little less exclusive. Surely, even in Kentucky, there are Jews and Muslims and Buddhists.

Now, I understand that your religion is the true one, but what I understand is how often Christians seem to practice the opposite of what Christ taught and showed, all in the name of Christianity. It may be for this reason, that Christianity is shrinking.

So on questions like this, let me ask you: What do you think Christ would have done?

Did Christ run around trying to imprint his logo on every object on site? Did you try to get his face put on money? Did he try and get his name put on large impressive buildings? No... someone was trying to do that, but it was the Romans, not Christ.

It seems to me to be Roman thinking, not Christian thinking, that wants to imprint a particular image on every object and building and even the way. Remember, those images are not God, or even images of God, or even images from God. Those are human images, human creations, human artefacts.

So as humans, we can ask: What would Christ do? Can we be like Christ? Or are we acting like Romans. Where does the felt need to stamp one's image, or the image of your community, on the face everything? Not from Christ. Again: the people that thought up that practice were the Romans.

Similarly with inclusiveness. In following Christ's example, would we seek to stamp the brand our faith on objects, and thus make it clear that Kentucky (or wherever) is OUR place, not yours.

What did Chris do?

Did Christ make the minorities, the weak, the reviled feel welcome? Did he consort with prostitutes, tax-collectors and Samaritans? Did he not preach to people, pointing to the hated and the excluded and reviled, saying: These, these are the people that I love the most.

Did he make it a condition of his love, that they follow him. Not to my memory, not to my bible. The conditionality was a Roman practice. It was the Romans who said: follow our laws, or be excluded and marginalised.

So what kind of place is Kentucky? Is it a place where every person -- Christian or not -- feels welcome, loved, and invited in? Does Christian behaviour take the front seat, and symbols the back seat? Or is it like Rome, where the symbols are the important thing.

Friends, my understanding of Christ's message is empty of any memory of him through throught or deed that it was important to stamp any image on any building, piece of money, or dating system.

Do I remember wrongly? But again, my question to you all... perhaps its not only irrelevant to worry about such things as CE and BCE, but perhaps even unChristian. Simply because that's not what Christ taught, and that's not what he did.

Sorry if I've offended in any way.

David