Vocation

How does the world understand time when there is such diversity of religion, background, and identity? I have been grappling with the fact that the world agrees universally (at least the connected world) that the year is 2018. Why did the whole world come to agreement that year 0 is according to the Christian Bible, a.k.a the birth of Jesus? These questions came as a shock to me because I learned AD and BC in early elementary history class. So the notion that the year is based off Jesus should have been clear to me, shouldn’t it have? Why have I never questioned this before? And why have I never com across these questions in conversations in interfaith contexts or critical analyses of Christian authority?

Soren assured me that it is not that terrible of a Christian-centric practice. It was just an easy way for a congregation of countries to interact with each other in a universal way. Additionally, the Internet and computers would not work unless there was universal agreement on the year. While these points helped me understand why leaders needed to universalize time, I am not convinced that my questions are answered. Why Jesus’ birth? Why not begin at year 0 whenever this convention took place and declare that everything before then was ‘pre-time’ or ‘pre-globalization’ or something like that? I am convinced that this is a gargantuan example of Christianity dominating the globe, regardless of the globe being mostly non-Christian. Why did the Gregorian calendar have such precedence?

These questions can go even further in the micro scale… Why did the world decide on 7 day weeks? The notion that Saturday and Sunday are weekend days? One could argue that this stems from Hebrew context, but Judaism definitely didn’t have global cultural dominance, so it is more likely because of Christian culture.

Soren and I got into an interesting discussion about how Christianity especially pervades much of the culture we have today regardless of the [seeming] fading or unpopularity of Christianity in popular culture…