The approach of January 2008; be it A.D. or C.E.

In the early morning hours of next Tuesday as we open the new year will you be celebrating the beginning of 2008 A.D. or 2008 C.E.?

As for my house, we will ring in 2008 A.D.

But some will ask what do I mean by A.D. or C.E.?

You might check with your son or daughter - in the 1990s educators in various parts of the country began to incorporate a reference that they feel "is less offensive to non-Christians."

That is the logic of religioustolerance.org which states the term "CE stands for Common Era" and though a "relatively new term ... is experiencing increased usage and is expected to eventually replace AD."

So what does this all mean?

The A.D. of 2008 A.D. is the abbreviation for the Latin words anno domini, meaning "year of the Lord." For hundreds of years Western civilization has used the designation B.C. for "Before Christ" and A.D. for years following the birth of Christ.

In 1787, our founding fathers marked the signing of the U.S. Constitution with a reference acknowledging that birth with the following statement:

"Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the states present the seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven and of the independence of the United States of America the twelfth."

And even the United Nations and the Universal Postal Union representing 191 nations acknowledge that pivotal event by marking dates through the use of A.D.

But academicians are increasingly trying to erase that reference in history texts and others make similar efforts through the media. They replace B.C. with B.C.E., meaning "Before Common Era" and they replace A.D. with C.E., meaning "Common Era."

While it is true that B.C. and A.D. have not always been used, they mark the singularly most significant event in all of history.

True the exact day and year of that event has not been precisely pinpointed. But that birth did historically take place. Advocates of B.C.E. and C.E. use the same numbering of years but simply change the designation associated with the year.

Apart from the birth of Christ there is no logical historical reason to identify a signifi- cant cultural shift at that time such as from "before common era" to "common era."

On the other hand, as I will share in the new year, the expanding understanding through the centuries of the magnitude of the incarnation ignited a sense of the value of every human life that previously had almost universally been absent.

That birth in the manger ushered in a new era which gave rise eventually to the concepts of "unalienable rights," "civil rights" and "human rights" based upon an understanding of the dignity of every man, woman and child made in the image of God.

As for my house there is no C.E. to get excited about: we will ring in 2008 A.D.

Peter Johnston, an East Bernard resident, earned a history degree from Cornell University and is a former high school history teacher. He established WORD Dynamics Ministry in 2003.