Politically Correct
I was sick for a few weeks in sixth grade, so the teacher sent home the lesson plans and homework so I wouldn’t fall too far behind. One of the lessons was on abbreviations. You know NYC for New York City and so forth. There was a worksheet with the abbreviation and a blank for students to fill in its meaning.
Since I wasn’t in class for the lesson, my mom encouraged me to fill out what I could, then she would help me with any I didn’t know. (Remember, this was decades before the internet was invented, but Mom and Dad did have an encyclopedia set). I think I filled the entire worksheet out without any help and turned it in.
The teacher, Miss Raven, a first-year teacher, graded my work and returned it to me. I got a B because I missed a couple. One was just a stupid mistake on my part. The other one was the meaning of BC. I wrote down “Before Christ” and was marked wrong. According to Miss Raven, the correct answer was British Columbia. Since that one question was the difference between getting an A or a B on the assignment, I decided to challenge her marking of that answer as incorrect.
I explained that, since I was not in class for the lecture, I answered with what I believed was a logical definition of the abbreviations. “Before Christ,” to my family and me, was a much more likely explanation of a BC abbreviation. She agreed and adjusted my grade accordingly.
I was reminded of this while reading an article about some archaeological find dated to 400 BCE. I wanted to make sure I understood the date, so I googled the definition of BCE. It seems that a couple of decades ago, academics started using BCE (before the common era) instead of BC, and CE (common era) instead of AD to avoid upsetting non-Christians. That way, the dating that everyone used stayed the same, but the terminology was changed to avoid upsetting some people.
We humans depend on communication to convey thoughts and ideas to each other. And, as a society, we’ve gotten to the point where we use our feelings to get people to change their word usage. I cringe whenever I see “birthing person” instead of mother or when people pick their own pronouns. It seems when words don’t have precise meaning, communication becomes problematic.
“Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” - Ephesians 4:25-32 ESV
I find it difficult not to yell at the top of my lungs when people want to destroy the meaning of words because of others’ feelings. God tells us not to grieve the Holy Spirit but to speak the truth to our neighbors. This has proven challenging for me.
