As the fur flies

According to the Church of Jerusalem, the Savior had shoulder-length hair and dreadlocks. Due, however, to the increasing hostility between the church and the synagogue, the true knowledge of our Redeemer’s flocculent features quickly became encrusted in the barnacles of hoary tradition and the evil tincture of vain philosophy.

According to the Occidental Church of the Bewhiskered Saints, our Redeemer had a full beard and shoulder-length hair. They claimed to trace this tradition all the way back to St. Periwig the Stalagmite, who was, in turn, said to be a direct disciple of Papias, according to the Lost Gospel of the Bearded One.

But according to the Roman Church of the Short-Haired Savior, our Redeemer was clean-shaven with a pageboy haircut. At the Second Council of Toupee, anyone who presumed to say that our Savior had dreadlocks was forever excommunicate from the one true body of the Savior, otherwise known as the Roman Church of the Short-Haired Savior.

This was in addition to a number of schismatic groups, such as the Holy White Hairians, who traced their church back to St. John the Revelator (Rev 1:14); the Dromedary Hairians, who traced their church back to John the Baptist (Mt 3:4); and the Purple Pate Hairians, who traced their church back to King Solomon (Cant. 7:5).

But things only got worse after the Reformation as splinter groups multiplied without number. There were the Radical Nappists, who said that our Redeemer had short kinky hair (their creed was: "no 'fro, no bro!"); the Shaggadelics, who went around unshaven, claiming that our Savior had ankle-length locks; and the Predestihairians who, due to an unfortunate misprint their Authorized Version of Rom 8:29, were of the firm opinion that all balding men were presumptive reprobates.

This, in turn, precipitated a breakaway sect, known as the Reorganized Predestihairians, who practiced hair-replacement for the dead.

In our own time, feminist theologians rebelled against “misogynistic” depictions of the Savior. They chose to observe a more inclusive liturgy in which the Savior had pigtails. However, the Anti-Defamation League filed a formal complain on the grounds that this porcine hairdo was anti-Semitic according to the kosher laws.

Maneline denominations tried, as always, to split the difference, proposing a Savior with hip-length hair, but the Church of the Holy He-Man depicted him with a buzz-cut.

This is before we ever get to seeker-sensitive churches who adapt their Christology to the Punk, Gothic, and Skinhead subcultures.