“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice.”

                                                                        Proverbs 29:2

Tomlinson distributed buttons and flyers and stumped the country, predicting victory for his Theocratic ticket. However, he ran only as a write-in candidate. When the election was over Eisenhower had received 33,938,285 votes and Stevenson 27,312,217. Eight also-rans, including Henry Krajewski, Poor Man’s Party; Stuart Hamblen, Prohibition Party; Herbert Holdridge, Vegetarian Party; and Brother Homer, shared 308,996 votes among them. Homer’s share of these scattered write-ins was so infinitesimal that the exact number seems to be nowhere recorded.

Tomlinson’s grin was never erased by the defeat. Far bigger things were in the offing. Two summers later Homer’s church held its general assembly in a huge tobacco barn at Greeneville, Tennessee. At that time Brother Homer began to feel that the Lord had anointed him to be King of the World. Tomlinson would reign as a “King in Righteousness” and “King of All the Nations of Men.” He borrowed an outsized chair from a Masonic lodge, and a robe from a theatrical costumer in New York City. He found a tinsmith who fashioned him a crown and covered it with gold leaf. He commissioned a local Betsy Ross to sew him a special flag. Of red, white, blue, and purple, the banner depicted a scepter of righteousness, a star of hope, and a crown of victory.

Previously he had visited Korea and talked his way onto a United Nations Far East Air Force plane flying over Korea at midnight, December 24, 1952. That, he reported, was the last night of real hostilities in Korea, and “since that time wars between nations just haven’t been able to jell.” He allowed that Arabs and Israelis have committed unfriendly acts since then, especially in 1967, but insisted that the war was over so soon that it really shouldn’t count as a war.

The only real exception to world peace, he said, was the affair in Vietnam. This he attributed to the fact that of all the nations of earth, he, Brother Homer, had been personally insulted only in Vietnam and in the United States. Vietnam once refused him admittance to that country, and police once hustled him off the Capitol steps in Washington, D.C., after he had been given a permit to occupy the steps. Both nations, he said, “rejected my coming as their king.” So, the Vietnam conflict continued!

In succeeding years Tomlinson as “King of the World” made numerous goodwill trips around the globe to proclaim peace and prosperity. If wars or revolutions had just begun, they suddenly ceased as he swept down out of the skies bringing peace. If a nation suffered from drought, no sooner did Brother Homer appear than the heavens unloaded the rain they had saved up for months. He flew to Moscow, parked himself in Red Square, opened his Bible, and began to “preach the gospel of Jesus in Russian, French, and in English.” Six hundred curious onlookers forsook Lenin’s tomb and circled around him. Finishing his sermon in 45 minutes, he offered prayer and walked away unmolested. The Soviet press reported that an American actor had visited Moscow.

Once when Tomlinson happened to be traveling in Finland, proclaiming himself king of that land, he read a newspaper report that World War III was about to begin in Berlin. “I must hasten to Berlin to prevent that war,” Brother Homer announced. He grabbed a plane to the troubled city and donning his robe and crown and waving his flag, he hurried to the Brandenburg Gate, where he proclaimed there would be no war. As a result, he reported, “in that moment the awful threat of a new war was scuttled.”

Subsequently Brother Homer quelled revolutions in Venezuela, Guatemala, and Costa Rica. On a visit to strife-torn Haiti, said Brother Homer, “As I set my feet down on the tarmac, the revolution ended.”

(to be continued . . .)

“Father, Thank you for stories of faith and history, and the people who make them. In Jesus’ name, AMEN.”