What’s Wrong with AD

SIR: I have just started reading Tom Frame’s article “Should the Church Apologise to Atheists?” (May 2008) and right on the first page, second column, I find reference to the fifth century CE. CE? What’s wrong with AD? Anno Domini? Why this timidity in witnessing to our Christian tradition? Why this unresisting acceptance of the dictates of modern secular style? Of course, if we get rid of Anno Domini we also get rid of Before Christ, thus losing another easy way to acknowledge Jesus as central to our Western intellectual tradition. If we Christians lose the courage to defend the symbols of our Christian civilisation, will the last bishop out of the cathedral please turn out the light? Frank Pulsford, Apsley, Qld.

Editor’s note: Mr Pulsford’s point is well made. This usage has crept into the academic and publishing industries by stealth, unannounced and often unnoticed, yet there has been no rational case publicly argued in its favour. Indeed, while there is no good reason to abandon traditional BC/AD dating, there are, as Mr Pulsford argues, good reasons to retain it. Those who chip away at the symbols of our civilisation, even one as inconspicuous as this, are not doing so innocently. The BCE/CE notation is one of many changes now being imposed by militant anti- Christians and anti-Westernists. In future, Quadrant will stick to traditional usage.