SpeakEZ Black Renaissance Podcast

In “Faith Under Empire,” Min. Qadry Harris explores Romans 14:1–12 through the lens of Roman imperial power and the ancestral witness of Howard Thurman’s grandmother, Nancy Ambrose. Considering how social location shapes our encounter with scripture, this sermon asks what faithful living requires when power seeks to define us: guard your spirit, refuse to play God, and build the community empire cannot.

Min. Harris explores how we deny the Resurrection not by rejecting Easter, but by missing Christ because we are too attached to our own certainty. From Emmaus to Peter’s witness in Acts, he challenges Christian nationalism, religious arrogance, and spiritual gatekeeping, reminding us that resurrection belongs to the whole world. Christ is still walking, still breaking bread, and still opening eyes—will we recognize him?

This sermon explores the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1–9) through ancestral remembrance, biblical exegesis, and practical discipleship. Honoring Moses and Elijah, it reveals how Jesus fulfills the Law and the Prophets while offering guidance for living faithfully in a turbulent world—with resurrection hope, moral courage, and spiritual wisdom.

The script from today’s Dissertation (PROPOSAL) Defense—unanimously approved without deliberation. It's been unofficial for a few months…but I'm officially an ABD Ph.D. Candidate.

“Egypt and the Promise of Refuge” is a Christmas sermon rooted in Matthew 2 that centers the nativity story on displacement, protection, and survival. Rather than treating the flight into Egypt as a minor detail, the message focuses on Jesus entering the world as a child threatened by political violence and preserved through refuge. Through a close reading of Matthew 2, the sermon presents Egypt as a place of shelter and preservation, highlighting how the survival of the Christ child depended on the protection and hospitality of unnamed people amid political violence. The sermon calls listeners to trust God as a refuge, to care for their own spiritual well-being, and to practice love for neighbors—especially the vulnerable—as central to the meaning of Christmas.

This sermon on Luke 14:25–33 examines the radical cost of following Christ through the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. From Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church to resisting Hitler, Bonhoeffer models “costly grace.” Three lessons call the Church to humility, faithfulness over tradition, and resurrection hope in the face of death.

Part five of The Sisters of Hagar—“The Brothers & Sisters of Hagar”—reads Leviticus 24 through Acts 7:22 to expose boundary-keeping that denies Nile-Valley roots. Pastor Qadry charges the Black Church to reject colonized preaching, reclaim Ma’atic balance, and let anti-African forms die so a resurrected, Africa-rooted, Christ-charged community can rise. Anchored by ancestral veneration and the Asar-to-Christ arc.

In The Sun Rose, So Must We (Genesis 41:45, 50–52, 57), Pastor Qadry reclaims Aseneth, Joseph’s Egyptian wife, as a priestess of Anu and bearer of African cosmic wisdom. While patriarchal traditions reduce her to wife and mother, African memory restores her priesthood and balance. The sermon calls the church to rise together by embracing harmony between African women and men, rejecting white patriarchy, and embodying resurrection as God’s cosmic design.

In The Witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28:3–25), Pastor Qadry reframes the so-called “witch” as a priestess and healer carrying African wisdom in the tradition of Hagar. The sermon critiques how Saul outlawed mediums yet turned to Endor’s power when desperate, exposing empire’s hypocrisy. Rooted in the principles of Maat, the message charges the church to love God by honoring Africa, guard the spirit with holy boundaries, and channel ancestral faith for communal good.

In this sermon, The First Word Still Speaks, Pastor Qadry critiques Paul’s allegory in Galatians 4 and reclaims Hagar as an African mother of nations shaped by the wisdom of Maat. Exposing how scripture and churches have disinherited African identity, the message calls believers to remember who they were before renaming, affirm that the first word still speaks, and embrace freedom as God’s will—not man’s gift.