June 14, 2026

A few years ago two scientists published a book called: The Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion. The authors were two university professors; biologist Randy Thornhill and anthropologist Craig T. Palmer. In the book they made the rather inflammatory claim that rape is not a pathology, biologically speaking. Instead, it is an evolutionary adaptation for maximizing reproductive success. The book calls rape “a natural, biological phenomenon that is a product of the human evolutionary heritage,” akin to “the leopard’s spots and the giraffe’s elongated neck.” Demonstrating how insulated many scientists are, the authors said they were genuinely surprised by all the controversy the book caused. After all, to a Darwinist it is simple logic that any behavior that survives today must have conferred some evolutionary advantage—otherwise it would have been weeded out by natural selection. When one of the authors, Randy Thornhill, appeared on National Public Radio, he found himself deluged by angry calls, until finally he insisted that the logic is inescapable: If evolution is true, then “every feature of every living thing, including human beings, has an underlying evolutionary background. That’s not a debatable matter.” 

I share this to serve as a stark reminder of the secular reality toward which our society is slowly sinking. Paul described how people who refuse to retain the knowledge of God will get progressively more and more perverted. Modern social mores have been a powerful example of Paul’s point. Today it is widely viewed as morally wrong to suggest that a person should not act out every one of their sexual desires. Isaiah pronounced “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”

We should hear this warning and not be coerced into not speaking up for what is true and right. Further if we love our fellow man we should do all that we can to warn them of the damage they do to themselves and everyone around them when they fall for secular hedonistic relativism. We can suggest a different and better way also outlined by Paul:

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

~ Kevin Cleary