news-record.com

Zeb North Holler pictures Jesus hanging out with outcasts, not staring off in the distance with a halo over his head.

In his just-published book, “Jesus’ Radical Message,” the 81-year-old retired Presbyterian preacher uses a broadened perspective from five decades in the ministry and his friendships among “the least of them” to update the sermons he has given over the years.

Holler, known as “Z” to his friends, wants to talk about the Jesus whose words were intentionally challenging.

“Love your enemies? Whoever heard of such a thing?” Holler asked, tongue-in-cheek.

In the chapter titled “Jesus’ Tough Love,” the former pastor of Presbyterian Church of the Covenant writes about a rich young man asking what he must do to “inherit” eternal life.

“Jesus let him see that all of his properties and all of his imagined uprightness were a barrier between him and the suffering poor around him, who were dying for lack of a fraction of the stuff he was clinging to as if it were God,” Holler wrote.

This biblical exploration is intended to encourage honest discussion and problem-solving for what Holler calls the “unruly human family.”

“His humility and his honesty leads him to see in Jesus and the Bible something very profound and something that is not fully understood or celebrated by many people,” said the Rev. Nelson Johnson, who wrote the book’s introduction.

“I think Jesus says as much when he says, 'Let those who have an eye, let them see and those who have an ear, let them hear,’ which is to say everyone does not have eyes for this, or ears for this, and cannot break free from the cultural and environmental influences.”

* * *

Holler wasn’t an obvious candidate for the work that was to come — empowering the powerless, primarily African Americans.

He came from a middle-class family, living in a segregated neighborhood.

A graduate of Davidson College with a degree in English, Holler taught high school and coached football before enlisting as a Navy aviator during the Korean War.

During flight training in Pensacola, Fla., he met his future wife, Charlene, and has been married for almost 57 years.

While he was in the Navy, his mother gave him “A Man Called Peter,” a book about a poor Scottish immigrant who became a prominent minister and chaplain of the U.S. Senate.

“I saw that you could be a minister of the gospel and still be a person of courage who dealt with the issues of society,” Holler said.

As a young pastor in Anderson, S.C., he and his wife took in Freedom Riders who challenged segregation, but failed to integrate the city’s annual Thanksgiving service.

After a career that included campus ministry at N.C. State during the Vietnam War, Holler returned to Greensboro as pastor of Presbyterian Church of the Covenant, which he had attended as a child.

Holler, now a father of four, was back in town for just a few months when a group of young activists staged a “Death to the Klan” rally in the Morningside Homes housing development.

A caravan of Klansmen and Nazis shot at the marchers, leaving five dead and others wounded. Holler was one of the first people to call for answers after the shootings. After two criminal trials, no one has ever been convicted.

Out of Holler’s conversations with Johnson, one of the rally organizers, would grow the city’s Beloved Community Center, which seeks to bring people together to work through divisive issues.

“He doesn’t go about expressing his views in a condescending way, but he wants people to understand where he’s coming from,” said Jane Randolph Johnston, a volunteer at the Beloved Community Center.

“He’s just such a gentle person and he’s so easy to get along with and that’s part of his appeal.”

Holler also helped start Project Uplift for disadvantaged children and The Servant Leadership School in Greensboro to encourage leadership through a yearlong process of study, prayer and community service.

These are the things in his past that helped shape his book.

* * *

The original draft had about 60 sermons from Holler’s archives.

The publisher thought the early version was too eclectic — “Like trying to talk on your cell phone when you’re in a crowd,” Holler said.

Holler focused on what people might not know about Jesus. He had once read a Bible teacher’s research that isolated all Jesus’ sayings.

“When he took all those sayings without the context, just these astounding words of Jesus, it showed me here is a real person — our brother,” Holler said. “He’s like us, except he knows what’s going on and tells it like it is.”

The 19 sermons include “Does It Still Make Sense?” and “A Prince of Peace Who Disturbs Our Peace.”

“There were people who wanted to throw this Jesus off a cliff,” Holler said.

Contact Nancy McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin @news-record.com