Recently I was thinking that the push for BCE and CE were efforts to avoid having to say 'before Christ' and 'Anno Domini'. 'Christian era' didn't take long to morph into 'common era' to entirely take Jesus out. Why 'common era'? Well, wikipedia the depository for couch potato knowledge and CIA shenanigans (page soon to be changed because of noticing it) says bce and ce "became more widely used in the mid-19th century by Jewish religious scholars" and is now "used by others who wish to be sensitive to non-Christians by not referring to Jesus." source: wiki page on 'common era' Jesus Christ is Lord.