My column "Pushing the Envelope: Mainstream Valedictorian Defies Secular Extremism" is published here.

Here's a key passage:

Roy Costner was supposed to follow a script pre-approved by imperious functionaries of a secular state.

But their extremism is at odds not only with the American mainstream but also with the transgenerational mainstream of free thought and of free humanity created in the image of God and not in the image of the state, the particles of an impersonal cosmos, or the results of agenda-driven polls.

Costner chose instead a humane resistance of love and truth on behalf of God and man. This "defiance" may confuse some observers today, but it should be of little surprise to those who affirm the content of the Lord’s Prayer. For included in that communication is publicly actionable information regarding an enduring and liberating mandate of human existence: the challenge to do God’s will "on earth, as it is in heaven."

That liberation can mean feeding the poor, rescuing 12-year-old girls from sex-trafficking, creating magnificent art, inaugurating the scientific enterprise, or sharing the Good News about a resistance movement launched from heaven. It might even mean bright young men and women rocking secular boats at public events in South Carolina and elsewhere -- maybe even "unto the end of the earth," as the Ringleader puts it (Acts 1). He and his people do have a knack for pushing the envelope.

This column is also published at The Pearcey Report.