Show us the verse.

The Reformation settled it: Scripture alone is the rule of faith. So we read the King James Version, about 783,000 words of it, looking for the verse that forbids a tail. It isn’t there. What is there, quite a lot of it, points the other way.

RulingNot forbidden. Chapter and verse below.

I · WittenbergTwelve theses

Twelve Theses on the Tail

Out of love for the truth, and the desire to bring it to light, the following will be disputed.

Scripture alone is the rule of faith and life.
Scripture nowhere forbids a tail.
What Scripture does not forbid, no church may bind on the conscience, for “God alone is Lord of the conscience” (Westminster Confession 20.2).
A tail is therefore adiaphoron: a thing indifferent.
“Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled” (Hebrews 13:4).
“Unto the pure all things are pure” (Titus 1:15).
“There is nothing unclean of itself” (Romans 14:14).
Peter was shown all manner of fourfooted beasts, and told not to call them common (Acts 10:12–15).
Every believer is a priest (1 Peter 2:9), so there is nobody else to ask.
Luther told Melanchthon to sin boldly. This is not a sin, so you may proceed timidly.
“Defraud ye not one the other” (1 Corinthians 7:5).
Let the King James be consulted, and let him who finds the verse against it bring it forward.

Whether Luther actually nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517, is disputed by historians: the story is first told after his death. That he mailed them to the Archbishop of Mainz that day is certain. We have nailed ours to nothing.

II · Sola scripturaChapter and verse

Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.
Hebrews 13:4 · KJV
The bed is undefiled. The list of those who defile it is short, and nobody on it is wearing a tail.

Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.
Titus 1:15 · KJV
If a tail seems impure to you, Paul suggests the problem is not the tail.

I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean.
Romans 14:14 · KJV
And if your spouse esteems it unclean, don’t. Romans 14 is mostly about not making each other miserable.

And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.
Acts 10:15 · KJV
Said to Peter about a sheet let down from heaven, full of “all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth.” Fox, wolf, cat.

Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.
Matthew 15:11 · KJV
We will not stretch this verse. We will only say that it is about where things go, and that it is on our side.

Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.
1 Corinthians 7:3 · KJV
Benevolence, due. The Apostle’s word for it.

The tails the King James mentions most memorably are in Judges 15: Samson catches three hundred foxes, turns them tail to tail and ties a firebrand between each pair of tails. Faux fur is flammable. Do not do this with ours.

The one verse anyone has offered against us is Deuteronomy 28:13, “the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail.” It is a promise to a nation, not a dress code. And it is in Deuteronomy, which also forbids mixing wool and linen (22:11). Our fur is neither, so we keep that verse better than most Christians.

III · AdiaphoraThings indifferent

Adiaphora, “things indifferent,” is a word the Lutheran reformers took from the Stoics for whatever Scripture neither commands nor forbids: vestments, candles, the order of a service. Christians may use them or not, as they see fit, and nobody may make them a matter of salvation.

Lutherans then fought over which things were indifferent for most of thirty years, and the Formula of Concord had to settle it in 1577 (Article X). Its answer: ceremonies Scripture neither commands nor forbids are free, but not when someone is trying to force them on you. Nobody is forcing a tail on you. It is free.

Methodists speak of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, four sources for theology: scripture, tradition, reason and experience (the idea is Wesley’s, the name is from the 1960s). Scripture has been checked above. Tradition, see Thesis 12. Reason, ask yourself. Experience, we can help with.

IV · The towerThe Reformation and the body

Luther said that his great insight, that the righteous live by faith, came to him in the tower of the Augustinian monastery in Wittenberg. In one version of his Table Talk he places it more exactly: auf dieser cloaca, on this privy.

Scholars have argued for a century about what he meant, and in 2004 archaeologists in Wittenberg found what may be the latrine itself. However you read it, the Reformation was not squeamish about the body. Luther married a former nun, Katharina von Bora, and wrote about married life with a frankness that still surprises people.

V · PuritansThe Puritans were for it

The Puritans’ reputation is unfair. They thought marriage should be warm and its bed generous, and they said so from the pulpit. In 1640 the First Church in Boston expelled one James Mattock, among other offenses, for refusing his wife her conjugal rights for two years.

The Shakers, by contrast, forbade sex altogether, even in marriage. They built beautiful furniture. As of 2025 there are three of them left, at Sabbathday Lake in Maine. This is the strongest empirical argument on this page.

Calvinists hold that God has predestined everything. If you were predestined to wear a tail, you will; if not, you won’t. Either way, ordering one does not decide anything, and so you may as well.

VI · The churchesChurch by church

Church	Where it stands	In a word
Lutheran	Formula of Concord X: what Scripture neither commands nor forbids is free.	Adiaphoron.
Reformed	Westminster Confession 20.2: God alone is Lord of the conscience.	Free.
Anglican	Article XXXIV: traditions and ceremonies need not be the same in all places.	Local custom.
Baptist	Soul liberty: each believer answers to God, not to a council.	Your call.
Methodist	Scripture, tradition, reason, experience.	Experience.
Quaker	The inner light, and plain dress.	A plain grey shark suit.

Here we stand. We can do no other.

The fox tail, one at a time A plain grey shark suit, for Quakers

Other traditions, each on its own page

Judaism Catholicism Orthodox Christianity Islam Hinduism Buddhism

Written with real sources and a straight face, by a shop, not a scholar. For a ruling that binds you, ask your rabbi, priest, imam, pandit, teacher or pastor. We did not ask ours.