Wednesday, March 09, 2005 AD
I kissed secular dating goodbye
No, not that kind of dating. I finally got round to doing something I've been meaning to do ever since I set up this blog, but wasn't sure how to do it - adding "AD" to the dates of posts.
Sounds trivial, and I suppose it is trivial in some ways, but the Sydney Anglican magazine The Briefing came out with quite a persuasive argument a few years ago for using "AD" as often as possible. The article in question has now been reprinted on The Briefing's blog, Couldn't Help Noticing. In it, Kel Richards argues that:
By using "AD" wherever possible - "on your letters, emails, cheques, in your diary - anywhere and everywhere you use a date that includes the year" - Richards argues that we have an opportunity:
Click the "Template" tag, locate the following code in your template, and add the bit I've put in bold:
Then simply save your changes, and republish your blog. As Kel Richards says at the end of his article, "Let’s start a movement".
Note: Before anyone points this out, I know that the proper way of putting it is "AD 2005" rather than "2005 AD". However, displaying it as "AD 2005" would need Blogger to change their code to allow this as an option. Perhaps this can be the next campaign ;-)
Sounds trivial, and I suppose it is trivial in some ways, but the Sydney Anglican magazine The Briefing came out with quite a persuasive argument a few years ago for using "AD" as often as possible. The article in question has now been reprinted on The Briefing's blog, Couldn't Help Noticing. In it, Kel Richards argues that:
Since "AD" stands for Anno Domini ("in the year of Our Lord") every time you use AD you are saying that Jesus Christ is the Lord of history. It’s a small, simple way of confessing to the Lordship of Jesus.Richards goes on to say that "This may not strike you as important, but the enemies of Jesus know exactly how important it is", as evidenced by attempts to replace BC and AD with BCE and CE ("Before Common Era" and "Common Era").
By using "AD" wherever possible - "on your letters, emails, cheques, in your diary - anywhere and everywhere you use a date that includes the year" - Richards argues that we have an opportunity:
to advertise the fact that we confess Jesus to be the Lord of history, the Lord of time, and (indeed) the Lord of all.Richards calls on other Christians to follow his example, and if you're on Blogger and want to join his "little campaign" on your own site, here's how you do it.
Click the "Template" tag, locate the following code in your template, and add the bit I've put in bold:
<BlogDateHeader>Note the space before the letters "AD". Also, the style tag in your template may differ from mine ("<h3>") - this should be left untouched, whatever it is.
<h3><$BlogDateHeaderDate$> AD</h3>
</BlogDateHeader>
Then simply save your changes, and republish your blog. As Kel Richards says at the end of his article, "Let’s start a movement".
Note: Before anyone points this out, I know that the proper way of putting it is "AD 2005" rather than "2005 AD". However, displaying it as "AD 2005" would need Blogger to change their code to allow this as an option. Perhaps this can be the next campaign ;-)
