Religion: Rollers at Cleveland

Tuckered out last week was Ambrose Jessup Tomlinson, Founder, Bishop and General Overseer of ”The Church of God of A. J. Tomlinson,” whose excitable communicants are known to outsiders as ”holy rollers.” In Bishop Tomlinson’s huge wooden tabernacle at Cleveland, a small East Tennessee town 40 miles southeast of Fundamentalist Dayton, little Founder Tomlinson, 71, brought to a close the liveliest revival meeting in a generation of distributing tracts and organizing holy roller camp meetings among the hillbillies of the Great Smoky Mountains. Some 15,000 of his 100,000 disciples were in Cleveland preaching, praying, yelling, healing each other and throwing fits in The Church of God’s 31st and greatest annual get-together.

At the altar, Sister Mary Kimmer. beauteous, blonde 19-year-old evangelist, exhorted the sanctified to come up “receive the Baptism of the Holy Ghost,” give up all worldly things, become sanctified. A man who felt the spirit move toward a closer personal touch with Jesus went to the “sinners’ bench.” Behind him the congregation’s feet stomped, hands clapped, voices cried, ”Glory, glory, glory, glory.” Praying as he became the focus of mass hysteria, the man began to quiver, shake, jerk in a St. Vitus’ dance. “Let him get through, oh Lord! More power, Lord! Glory! Glory!” the congregation cried. The man’s arms went up. His head went back. His mouth uttered “unknown tongues” until he dropped unconscious, “slain of the Lord” to rise later “baptized of the Holy Ghost.” More than 100 holy rollers underwent this violent religious experience during Church of God’s six-day convention.

In addition, holy rollers:

¶ Saw the Rev.’Francisco (“The Great Aztec”) Olazabal, swarthy, plump Mexican faith-healer, rise beside their Founder, kiss him full in the mouth, declare he was bringing 50,000 Mexican followers into the lap of the Church of God of A. J. Tomlinson.

¶ Heard the Founder’s son. Rev. Homer Tomlinson of Jamaica, L. I., report that the Church had attracted “thousands of converts in Russia.”

¶ Saw the elders of their Church anoint 900 crippled, blind and diseased holy rollers with oil, which seemed to benefit some.

¶ Witnessed a pageant of “the Kings of the Earth” in which King Edward VIII was represented as attending, on the eve of his coronation, a holy roller meeting in the London slums, on which occasion he has a vision of conquering hosts of the Church of God taking the whole world the message of peace and teaching all to seek (he Holy Ghost, the Gift of Tongues.

¶ Contributed in one 45-minute call Si.oSo to (he missions of the Church of God of A. J. Tomlinson.