"Stop Killing Virgins" by Trey Knowles is a witty and thought-provoking allegorical comedy that delivers a powerful message. Through humor and satire, Knowles urges society to stop the harmful practices of forcing virgins into marriage or threatening them with violence. He emphasizes that love cannot be manufactured through fear or coercion—true love must be genuine and freely given. The play challenges outdated mindsets and calls for a shift toward compassion, respect, and emotional integrity.
Former Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said President Donald Trump inquired about shooting protesters amid the unrest that took place after George Floyd's murder in 2020. He recounts that incident, and many others, in a wide-ranging interview with NPR's Michel Martin on All Things Considered.
Esper said he stayed in the administration because he worried that if he left, the president would more easily implement some of his "dangerous ideas."
The former Defense chief also said he hopes Trump does not seek the presidency in 2024.
"We need leaders of integrity and character, and we need leaders who will bring people together and reach across the aisle and do what's best for the country. And Donald Trump doesn't meet the mark for me on any of those issues."
Esper said he and other top officials were caught off guard by Trump's reaction to the unrest in the summer of 2020.
"The president was enraged," Esper recalled. "He thought that the protests made the country look weak, made us look weak and 'us' meant him. And he wanted to do something about it.
"We reached that point in the conversation where he looked frankly at [Joint Chiefs of Staff] Gen. [Mark] Milley and said, 'Can't you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?' ... It was a suggestion and a formal question. And we were just all taken aback at that moment as this issue just hung very heavily in the air."
As a young Army captain in the mid-1990s, Esper said he saw the office occupied by the Defense secretary as hallowed ground, a place he hardly dared imagine himself. Yet, there he was 21 years later, serving as President Trump's secretary of Defense; facing challenges he also never imagined.
He wrote about those challenges in a new book, A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times. In it, Esper describes Trump as a volatile, ill-informed leader obsessed with power and self image.
Esper also detailed in his book a campaign by the former president and his then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to deny a promotion to Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, whose congressional testimony led to Trump's first impeachment.
Vindman, a Ukraine expert and former official with the National Security Council, testified that he was present during a now-infamous phone call between the former president and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in which Trump tried to blackmail Zelenskyy for political dirt on Joe Biden and his family. That allegation helped ignite the impeachment effort against Trump.
Esper said he worries about the fallout from Trump's political tactics.
"It became much more than Alexander Vindman at that point when you have this behavior going on. It became a test of, were we going to allow political influence in our promotion systems and in how we assign people? And that's a hard red line for me and others in the Pentagon that we weren't going to allow that to happen, let let alone a vendetta against a single individual who was doing the right thing."
Sadly, Nigeria has become known as the world’s center of Christian martyrs. In any given year, the number of Christians killed by extremist groups is rarely less than 4,000—often more than in the rest of the world combined.
Violence against the Nigerian Christian population is significantly localized in the north, where twelve Muslim-majority states declared sharia law in 1999, resulting in huge numbers of Christians experiencing daily discrimination. But it was the rise of an extremist movement called Boko Haram, which first started its murderous attacks in 2009, that resulted in Christians experiencing unprecedented violence.
According to an April 2023 report by the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, at least 52,250 persecuted Christians have been killed in the past fourteen years, simply for the crime of being Christian. In the past five years, violence has spread southwards to the middle belt of Nigeria, with radicalized Fulani herdsmen killing Christians to steal their land.
Boko Haram has now been joined by another extremist group operative in the area, called the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), and both seek the eradication of Christianity from the northern states.
The violence has resulted in refugees now numbering over four million, mostly Christian farmers. The government of Nigeria has proved unwilling to condemn the levels of violence, which some call genocidal, or inept in its attempts to engage and neutralize extremist movements.
Death Toll: The death toll among Christians killed in Nigeria has been staggering. With more than 50,000 Christians killed, Central Nigeria has seen an increase in attacks, spreading beyond the northern regions. The Christian community faces relentless violence from extremist groups that target them for their faith. The central government’s failure to counteract this violence continues to fuel the crisis.
Parts of Nigeria: In parts of Nigeria, particularly in the north, tensions between Christians and Muslims have escalated due to extremist activity. Christian persecution has worsened as groups like Boko Haram and ISWAP wage campaigns of terror against Christian communities.
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At least 218 people have been killed and more than 6,000 displaced after a spate of devastating attacks on mostly Christian villages in Benue State, a territory in the Middle Belt region of northern Nigeria. Islamic Fulani militants are suspected to be behind all six of the attacks, which targeted men, women and children.
The attacks happened between June 8 and June 14, with the deadliest on June 13 0f 2025, when a displacement camp numbering 400 people in Yelewata was attacked. The militants were first resisted by the military, only for soldiers to retreat to a market area where IDPs were taking refuge in storage facilities.
"Join with us to pray that God Himself should be our defender and sustain us and keep us."
Pastor Barnabas, Nigerian believer
Shouting "Allahu Akbar" ("God is greater"), militants burned the buildings and attacked people with guns and machetes. Some 200 people were killed and five injured. Earlier that day, six civilians and three soldiers were killed in separate incidents.
"Open Doors condemns in the strongest terms possible the attacks in Benue state," says Jo Newhouse, Open Doors' spokesperson for our work in sub-Saharan Africa. "For this pattern of attack on mostly Christian villages to continue without restraint is totally unacceptable. Christians in the Middle Belt of Nigeria need to know their government is willing to do what is needed to secure their safety of all her citizens, regardless of their ethnicity or religion."
The first of this latest surge in attacks occurred in the village of Udei, when attackers shot and killed two farmers and injured another as the victims worked on their field. On June 11, two women were killed as they worked on their land near the village of Tse Ivokor. The next day, Amos Uorayev, an IDP and Protection Volunteer with Foundation for Justice Development and Peace, set out with four other youths to recover bodies, only to be ambushed and killed.
Last Sunday, thousands gathered on the streets of Makurdi—the capital of Benue State—to protest the killings, with police firing teargas to disperse them. "Listen to us, we are tired, please stop Benue killings!" said a young woman at the protest.
Governor Hyacinth Alia of Benue State said the state is under siege by "terrorists." In a recent interview, he explained further: "Of late, what we experience and what we see is more appalling. It is much stronger, way beyond farmer-herder crisis. We're being attacked by bandits and terrorists. The level of what we have experienced in the last two months, it's so alarming."
The State House of Assembly have said that Governor Alia, his deputy and the 32 lawmakers had let the people down. On Wednesday, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu visited Benue State and set up a committee to help restore sustainable peace to the region. "Let's fashion out a framework for lasting peace," he said at a town hall meeting. "I am ready to invest in that peace. I assure you, we will find peace. We will convert this tragedy into prosperity."
Meanwhile, the United Nations have condemned the attacks and called for a comprehensive investigation into the incidents.
"Open Doors joins the UN in calling for immediate action and a comprehensive investigation," Newhouse says. "We also call upon the government of Nigeria to take immediate action to provide protection, by taking robust action to stop violent militant attacks. We call for justice, which includes the fair prosecution of those responsible. And lastly, we call for restoration by providing restitution, rehabilitation and compensation for survivors and communities.
"The international community should do all in its power to encourage urgency and transparency from the Nigerian government in action to ensure they achieve these goals."
The Middle Belt region is part of northern Nigeria, a melting pot of ethno-religious groups that have long co-existed, and it's where Christianity's northern presence is centered.
The Fulani, a nomadic people group, are increasingly migrating southward into Middle Belt states. It's not a new migration route, but due to climate change, resources are becoming scarcer and competition more intense. Not all Fulani are militants, but an Islamist element has emerged, with targeted violence increasingly common—and Christians are among those in the firing line.
God's word I can't live without. "Your word guides my steps and lights the way before me."
Psalm 119:105 states, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path".
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Hebrews 12:1
In his speech "The Emperor Has No Clothes," Trey Knowles criticizes those in positions of counsel who fail to stand up against the immoral actions of a corrupt president. Instead of opposing wrongdoing, they support and justify it. Knowles draws a parallel to a warning found in the Bible, specifically 2 Corinthians 11:14–16, which states that "Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light," and that his servants will also appear righteous, but their true nature will be revealed by their actions. The title metaphor—“the emperor has no clothes”—highlights the blatant evil being committed in plain sight. Knowles directs his message to the United States, calling out the nation for allowing such deception and corruption to go unchecked.
In The Weapon of Sorcery, Trey Knowles explores how a metaphorical form of sorcery is being wielded against American citizens, pushing them into circumstances where they are forced to commit minor crimes or fall into homelessness. This "spell" is cast through systemic oppression that makes people's lives unbearably difficult, ultimately stripping them of their autonomy and turning them into property of the state. This dynamic serves to line the pockets of the wealthy, who profit from both the exploitation of the marginalized and the penal systems that ensnare them.
Trey Knowles' "Netanyahu Circumcision" Stand-Up Comedy
In this comedic piece, Trey Knowles humorously addresses Netanyahu, urging him to understand that true circumcision is of the heart, not just physical. Through satire, Trey highlights the spiritual message that without a change of heart, one may carry inner torment—symbolized as a "thorn in the flesh"—that cannot be ignored.
Trey Knowles' "Feel My Ruach" is a powerful reflection on both past and present struggles. It’s a cry to feel the spirit—the ruach—of pain, hardship, and perseverance. As we climb Jacob's ladder, striving toward God’s promise, we often face resistance from the enemy who seeks to strike our heel and rob us of our blessings. But Jesus understands our suffering—He too was attacked by the forces of the antichrist, which still work today to torment God’s people.
From colonization and slavery to physical and mental abuse, we have been stripped of our identity in God. Yet, we continue to rise, climbing the ladder, resisting evil. We are the product of Christ and the trials He endured on earth. Through our ruach, we no longer wrestle—we rest in Christ, trusting Him to fight our battles. We are the tribe of Jacob. We are Israel. And through our ruach, God prevails.
In his hilarious stand-up set "The Republican Church," Trey Knowles tells Republican Evangelicals not to bother inviting him to their church—because, as he puts it, “Y’all don’t know Jesus.” With bold humor and sharp insight, he calls out the politics-over-faith culture in a performance that’s as thought-provoking as it is funny.
In "Teach Kids Cursive," Trey Knowles argues that learning cursive is essential because it allows individuals to sign their own name and truly own something. He also makes an intriguing point that cursive has historical ties to Arabic and Afro-Asiatic languages, suggesting that its origins go beyond English and play a deeper role in cultural and personal identity.
"The Big Rock" by Trey Knowles is a humorous allegory comedy about schoolyard bullies who steal kids' lunches—until one brave student takes a stand. Fed up with the bully's cruelty, he hurls a giant millstone rock at him, delivering justice in a bold (and hilarious) way.
Welcome to TK Message — the digital home of Trey Knowles (aka “Truth & Knowledge”), where faith meets real-life transformation.
Here you’ll find bold articles, Bible studies, life-coaching insights and cultural commentary rooted in the love of Yeshua. Our goal: to inspire recognition of truth, empower personal resurrection, and equip believers to walk confidently in purpose.
Join us as we explore scripture, expose distractions, embrace freedom in the Spirit, and prepare for the return of Yeshua.
Dive into meaningful topics — from encouragement and hope, to prophecy and social critique — and discover a message of substance, salvation and change. TK Message is not just a blog, it’s a movement toward authentic living.
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