The driver in the car behind a customer at a drive-up window at Starbucks blasted his horn impatiently. Rather than getting flustered, the lead customer shocked the window clerk by paying not only for his own order, but also the order of the frazzled horn blower behind him.

Apparently this unexpected act of undeserved kindness so impressed and convicted the horn blower that he mended his ways and paid for the customer in the car behind him.

According to the national news services this touched off a chain reaction of kindness for several more cars. They did not report how long the wave of generosity lasted. My guess is that it came to a screeching halt when someone had the misfortune of being in front of a van packed with college students ordering 15 Venti Caramel Macchiatos!

If you look at that event logically, only the first person showed unusual kindness. He was the only one being horn-blasted. He was the only one who showed grace in the face of mistreatment. He was the only one who had to pay for both his order and the order of the person behind him.

Who was this person? And what church does he go to? As Christians, who like to think we have the patent on kindness and love, we are inclined to assume he must be a Christian.

Sadly for our collective ego, it was reported that the original peacemaker was a practicing New Ager spreading his philosophy of love through this commendable act of non-retributive kindness.

As much as we hate to admit it, and despite the recent emphasis on the methodology of kindness evangelism, there is nothing uniquely Christian about being kind and peaceful. It testifies to nothing. It offers no notable evidence of the truth of Christianity. It’s simply “being nice.”

True, in a world of un-niceness simply “being nice” may open the door to conversation and relationship, which may lead to an opportunity to witness. But make no mistake, kindness offers no apologetic defense of the gospel. Nor does it embody any particular trait peculiar to Christianity.

If our evangelistic strategy depends on impressing people with kindness we had better be prepared to be bested from time to time by a full field of other competitors vying for the attention and affection of our prospective converts.

At this point some persons might argue, “That’s right, Doug. That’s why we Christians need to be more than kind and peaceful people. We are called to be peacemakers.”

Good point.

That’s an important clarification that helps push us beyond peacefulness toward a true Christian trait. But even peacemaking is not exclusively Christian. History is full of examples of people who made great personal sacrifice to stop wars, tear down walls of separation or eradicate various forms of oppression. In short, they were peacemakers. They confronted rifles with flowers; they laid their bodies down in front of the machinery of war; they used hunger strikes and picket signs to shine cleansing light into areas of powerful evil. And they weren’t necessarily or even predominantly Christian.

So what is the uniquely Christian trait of peace about?

It’s not about simple kindness. It’s not about passive resistance. It’s not about restoring equilibrium and health after the devastation of conflict. It’s not even about reconciling enemies. The world can do that.

True peacemaking is about the eradication of the cause of conflict, not just the occurrence. It is about the mission of Jesus who said that He came to destroy the works of the devil and then disarmed the diabolical powers by His voluntary death on the cross.

Too often we see the cross of Christ in its wonderfully romantic dimension: Jesus loved us enough to die for us. But if that is all the cross was about, it would make a wonderful transaction for our benefit, but not an efficacious strategy for our full salvation. Sure, we would be saved from the penalty of sin, but not from its power. Our lives would be left subject to the same evil oppression that leads to all conflict, turmoil and strife.

The power of the Enemy had to be destroyed. That’s what Jesus accomplished on the cross. Christus Victor.

True peacemaking is not merely about the cessation of conflict, mopping up a mess and setting things back in order. Peacemaking is about making victorious war against that which makes war. This is the only sense in which peacemaking can be truly Christian and testify to the unique power and truth of Jesus Christ: It effectively vanquishes evil power. It destroys death.

Many other world religions and philosophies can negotiate peace agreements and bring about the cessation of conflict. But only Jesus Christ can get at the heart of it all and conquer evil.

With this in mind, let’s go back and ask again what the Christian trait of peace is supposed to look like.

It looks aggressive.

This peace paradoxically takes seriously the Bible’s warfare history and imagery. A Christian filled with the Spirit of peace makes war on anything and everything that ravages people’s lives. It shines its attention with laser-like passion on any cancerous evil and settles for nothing less than the destruction of that which destroys.

Aggressive peace gets angry. But keeping in mind the biblical cosmology that we “wrestle not against flesh and blood,” it aims its weapons of destruction at evil principalities — not people.

Aggressive peace demands, “Let my people go!”

Consequently, aggressive peace moves Christians to be people who not only free slaves, but end slavery. Aggressive peace moves Christians not only to save and soothe victims, but to exorcize demons from the victimizers.

Christians who are filled with the Spirit of peace seek out any and every corporate evil that oppresses the weak and drive it out, even if — especially if — it exists in the church.

Christians filled with aggressive peace, when informed by biblical faith, find prayer to be by far the most potent weapon available, and use it ceaselessly.

When the church begins to lift up this high standard of peacemaking, the world will see types and degrees of victory and transformation that it cannot explain nor reproduce. That will bear witness to the existence of a loving, powerful God far better than buying a cup of coffee for an impatient stranger at Starbucks.