Jeff Spencer

A graphic of words that says: Prayer for the Life of the World May our enemy become our friend, O God, that we may share Earth’s goodness. May our enemy become our friend, O God, that our children may meet and marry. May our enemy become our friend, O God, that we may remember our shared birth in you. May we grow in grace may we grow in gratitude may we grow in wisdom that our enemy may become our friend. John Philip Newell, “Praying with the World”

A photograph of Bill McKibben, a white, balding man wearing glasses, with a quote from him that says, “The midterm elections … will either affirm our slide into the dank pit of authoritarianism for a good long time, or they will be moment when we find the first leverage to start the slow but crucial process of pulling ourselves out of the mire.”

The Good News Is … Revealed Through Nonviolence A sermon preached at Niles Discovery Church, Fremont, California,on Sunday, March 8, 2026, by the Rev. Jeffrey Spencer.Scriptures:  Matthew 5:38-41 and Matthew 26:47-56Copyright © 2026 by Jeffrey S…

The manuscript for today’s #sermon, “The Good News Is … Revealed Through Nonviolence,” is on my blog (link below).

In this sermon, I look at two passages from Matthew’s gospel to explain why I believe the way of Jesus is a way of nonviolence and how there is no such things as a “just war.”

Maybe it makes financial sense to electrify our power needs and to generate that electricity from clean, renewable sources.
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The war in Iran shows us another cost of our fossil-fuel economy our reliance on fossil fuels makes us less safe

Andrew Dressler concludes, “When you add it all up, fossil fuels are not cheap. They’ve never been cheap. We’ve just been brilliant at hiding the costs — in the defense budget, in emergency rooms, in FEMA disaster relief, etc.” www.theclimatebrink.com/p/the-war-in...
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The Three Trillion Dollar War A <em>New York Times</em> Bestseller 'This is a catalog [of costs] the Bush team never looked at. It's a catalog that they still don't want you to see.'&#8212;James Galbraith, The Three Trillion Do...

This subsidy is just to be ready to fight. Then there are the actual wars we’ve fought over the oil supply. For example, the 2003 Iraq War’s cost was estimated to be $3 trillion — nearly $10,000 per American. wwnorton.com/books/The-Th...
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<- that it makes oil look far cheaper than it actually is. Spread across U.S. oil consumption, it works out to roughly $11 per barrel, or about 28 cents per gallon, hidden in the defense budget. For a typical fill up, that subsidy amounts to $5 per tank, hidden in the defense budget.
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The Military Cost of Defending Global Oil Supplies - SAFE According to the calculations of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the cost to the United States of defending the global oil sup...

According to “Securing America’s Future Energy,” the United States spends more than $81 billion every single year just to protect the global supply of oil. secureenergy.org/military-cos...

When you consider that this $81 billion each year is paid by taxpayers, your realize ->
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Thank you, once again, for your levelheaded observations and advice.

Some Amish Communities Are Adopting E-Bikes Instead Of Horses - Jalopnik Roughly two-thirds of Amish churches now allow e-bikes.

We characterize Amish folk as being anti-technology. It turns out that’s not exactly right. It’s not technology itself that the Amish are opposed to, but the destructive effects they believe it would have on their communities. Which is why some Amish communities are adopting electric bicycles.

environmental protection

<- at manufacturing EVs because we need to be good at building the batteries and high-efficiency motors that power them. In the future, these technologies will power everything that matters.”
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The Car World Is Going Electric, Without America After $50 billion in squandered investments, will U.S. auto companies finally get serious—or just watch while China wins, asks Michael Dunne.

Car dealers systematically undermine EVs because, since they have so few moving parts, they don’t provide much in the way of service and repair income. This is bad for reasons beyond the obvious one of destroying the climate. For instance, Michael Dunne explains, “America needs to be good ->
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War YouTube video by Edwin Starr - Topic

I’m listening to this song (repeatedly) as I start thinking about my March 8 sermon. youtu.be/hZJRJpbGkG4

As if you needed another reason to throw the bums out, according to emails released in January, the “scientific panel” that the Department of Energy convened to cast doubt on climate science was entirely a political hatchet job—oh, and it ignored all the requirements for open meetings.

Judge Approves $345 Million Verdict Against Greenpeace in Pipeline Suit

Well, there’s another blow against free speech. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/c...

A graphic with a photo of ICE officers arresting someone. Over the photo are these words: Stop calling it “deportation.” When people are taken off the streets without due process, that’s kidnapping. When people are sent to another country against their will without so much as an immigration hearing, that’s Human Trafficking. When people are locked away with no judicial oversight, they’re in a concentration camp.

@mbjackson707.bsky.social, just thought I'd let you know that I'm going to post this article to my congregation's FB and Insta accounts tonight.

I'm proud to be part of the United Church of Christ!

The violence and hate of the Department of Homeland “Security” continues in Minnesota and across the United States. We must continue to confront it with nonviolence. We must stay louder than hate!
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Despite their best efforts, they couldn't provoke violence. The commitment by residence of Minneapolis to nonviolent resistance protected us all from martial law.
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Louder than Hate (Our song) YouTube video by Jayme Hoiness

Let’s remember what ICE and CBP did in Minneapolis: They killed two US citizens on the streets while being filmed, they abducted children (including a little boy in a bunny hat), and they terrorized residence for over a month.
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Fascist Failure The State of Trump

The elections in November are as important as they get if we’re going to remain a democratic republic.

You can read Dr. Snyder’s analysis at snyder.substack.com/p/fascist-fa....
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So, if war with Iran isn’t going to transition the USA to fascism, what will Trump do? Dr. Snyder says, “Between now and November 2026 he has two moves: win a war, which he cannot; and suppress the vote, which he has telegraphed that he will try to do.”
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“In the other scenario, we invade. That is the only escalation that could possibly work to advance the fascist transition. But it would not work. Trump is incompetent and so are his advisors. And war is hard. And Americans will not be patient.…”
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“In one, nothing much happens in Iran.… But this will have no effect on domestic politics.
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Noting that the Trump administration has “abolished the relevant institutions and forsaken the appropriate tools” for moving Iran toward freedom (which would likely be Trump’s claim as to why he started a war there), Dr. Snyder sees “only two real scenarios.”
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A quote from Timothy Snyder’s Substack post of 25 February 2026, titled, “Fascist Failure,” that says, “Fascism demands a major foreign war to kill one’s own people and thereby generate a reservoir of meaning that could be used to justify indefinite rule and further oppression, to make the world seem like an endless struggles and submission to hierarchy as the only kind of life.”

Dr. Timothy Snyder knows that Trump wants to move the USA from a democratic republic to a fascist state. To do this, he wants a war, and Iran seems to be the most likely target. The fact that the U.S. population does not want such a war is not likely to be a deterrent.
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<- like adopting national climate action plans aligned with the goal of limiting global heating to below 1.5 degrees Celsius, phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, and creating an international registry to record climate damage claims.