A DECISION to use politically correct terms - which do not mention Jesus Christ - for dates BC and AD in the new national history curriculum was an act of Christian cleansing, church leaders said yesterday.

BCE (Before Common Era), BP (Before Present) and CE (Common Era) are the new neutral terms to replace the historical terms BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini).

Removing BC and AD from the curriculum was an "intellectually absurd attempt to write Christ out of human history", Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen said yesterday.

"It is absurd because the coming of Christ remains the centre point of dating and because the phrase 'common era' is meaningless and misleading," he said.

It was akin to calling Christmas the festive season, Archbishop Jensen said.

The Reverend Fred Nile said the deletion was "an absolute disgrace ... the direction of the national curriculum is towards almost a Christian cleansing to remove from our history any references to the role Christianity had in the formation of Australia and still has today".

"This is the final insult to remove BC and AD which are still recognised around the world," he said.

A spokesman for the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, responsible for developing the national curriculum from kindergarten to Year 12, said BCE and CE were to be introduced because this was an increasingly common standard for the representation of dates.

The little known term BP (Before Present) will be used when dealing with "very ancient history and archaeology, and allows for the teaching of more sophisticated understandings of representations of time".In anticipation of the curriculum change, textbooks for student teachers such as Teaching And Learning In Aboriginal Education, by Neil Harrison, were already using the term BP.

A spokesman for Education Minister Adrian Piccoli said yesterday the minister was not concerned about the changes, adding that BCE and CE were commonly used terms.

Federal Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne said: "Australia is what it is today because of the foundations of our nation in the Judeo-Christian heritage that we inherited from Western civilisation. Kowtowing to political correctness by the embarrassing removal of AD and BC in our national curriculum is of a piece with the fundamental flaw of trying to deny who we are as a people."

The curriculum was to have been introduced next year but has been delayed.

Originally published as The PC brigade kills off Christ