“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rules, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens. For this reason take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

A few months ago, several college campuses were roiled by protest movements that were anti-Israel, pro-Palestine, and sometimes even pro-Hamas. While the subject of the protests was undoubtedly a serious matter, one of the most humorous and frustrating things about these movements was that a number of the people who got caught up in them didn’t really know what they were protesting about. Somebody just said, “We’re protesting,” and they cluelessly showed up. In not really understanding the objective of the protest, they didn’t understand who their enemy was supposed to be. This left them vulnerable to all kinds of deserved mocking from folks who didn’t support them. If we don’t know who our real enemy is, it’s easy to get all caught up in fighting and lose sight of what our reason was in the first place. For the last several months I have slowly been watching through the series, Star Wars: Clone War. The series has been immensely enjoyable. Along the way, one theme has risen to the top in terms of a Gospel connection in the story. Let’s talk about Clone Wars, the Gospel, and fighting the right enemies.

Normally when I do a media review of some kind, I start by giving a fairly thorough recap so my analysis makes sense to someone who hasn’t watched it. Those efforts have taken us deep into obscure Marvel lore in the past. I’m not going to try to do that for this series. Not only am I not as deep into the broader Star Wars universe beyond the main films and the handful of TV shows I’ve seen, but the series ran for seven seasons and consists of around 130 episodes. That’s way too much to try to cover here. Still, though, a bit of context will be important.

The series takes place between episodes 2 and 3 of the main film franchise. Like the series title suggests, it is about the years’ long war between the Republic and the Separatists. The primary fighting force of the Republic is the clone troopers who were made by the Kaminoans using DNA from bounty hunter Jango Fett. When Jango agreed to have his DNA used for that purpose, his contract stipulated that he wanted one clone for himself whose growth would not be fast tracked like all the rest who could functionally be his son. He named the boy Boba, and he would go on to become the most feared and famous bounty hunter in the Star Wars universe, Boba Fett.

The two sides in the war are the Galactic Republic, a convention of planets that are together committed to creating a free and prosperous galaxy for all people to enjoy, and the Separatists, a collection of planets and systems that don’t want to give fealty to the Republic and are…bad. How exactly they are bad and why remains pretty opaque throughout the series, and in fact we learn along the way that there are good and noble planets who are a part of the Separatist movement and who simply want to be left alone rather than being forced to join a broader alliance of planets for good or for ill.

What really makes them bad is that they are primarily led by the villainous Count Dooku, a Sith Lord named Darth Tyranus who used to be a powerful Jedi before turning to the Dark Side. On the Republic side of the things, they are led by a large body of the Senate in which each planet can appoint a representative to advocate for their interests in the decisions that are made which affect all the member states. Presiding over the Senate is the Supreme Chancellor, Sheev Palpatine, who, unbeknownst to everyone until the tail end of Episode 3, is really the Sith Lord, Darth Sidious. Count Dooku is his protege, and together they are the ones who have navigated both alliances into this war, and have made sure the war has continued for as long as it has.

While the Separatists forces consist entirely of droids, the Republic, as I mentioned, uses the clones. The effect is that no real people are involved in the fighting. When a droid is destroyed, it’s just a robot. When a clone is killed, it’s just a clone. Except, as the series develops, one of the storylines is the way the clone troopers have all developed unique identities for themselves and begin to advocate for their being seen as the people they really are rather than as merely numbered cannon fodder for the Republic. The voice actor for the clones, Dee Bradley Baker, did a wonderful job giving them all unique personalities in spite of their all sharing his one voice.

The other main characters throughout the series are, of course, the Jedi. They serve as generals for the Republic forces. Ostensibly they are peacekeepers, only involved to lead the charge against the Dark Side and its machinations. The main four Jedi are Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, Anakin Skywalker, and Ahsoka Tano. The first three of those obviously had their places in the broader Star Wars universe coming into the series. Ahsoka was introduced as Anakin’s Padawan, or his Jedi-in-training. Kind of like with the DC character Harley Quinn, she was introduced as a minor character in the series, but gradually became popular enough that she has become a major figure in her own right and a fan favorite. She became enough of a fan favorite to get her own series earlier this year (which I still have not watched and in fact finally committed to watching all of Clone Wars in order to better know her background before watching the series).

The Clone Wars series allowed for incredible character development for all of the main characters involved in the storyline. We see the wisdom of Yoda on display, we see Obi-Wan become the legendary leader we know him to be. We see the growth of Ahsoka as a Jedi. We learn the backstory of other characters who have become Star Wars fixtures because of this series. We are introduced to the history of Mandalore which provides the background for the Mandalorian series. Other popular animated series like Rebels and The Bad Batch both trace their origins to Clone Wars. We also see Anakin become the great Jedi Knight he was always referred to as being before he became Darth Vader in the movies. The relationship development between him and Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, and his wife, Padme Amidala (who gets a ton of great character development in her own right) is a fantastic part of the series. The animated Anakin also completely redeems the absolutely appalling performance by Hayden Christensen in Episodes 2 and 3. We are also introduced to a whole cast of villains who add wonderful character to the Star Wars universe.

On the whole, the series has been wonderful. It ranks in my book as one of the greatest animated series of all time. I’d put it up there with Justice League Unlimited, Young Justice, the 1990s Spider-Man series, Batman: The Animated Series, and X-Men. The animation style is good, the writing is fantastic, the music is wonderful, the voice acting is always on point, the character development is tremendous. It’s all really, really good.

This brings us at last to the point of Gospel connection. The Jedi don’t know who they are fighting. Yes, the Separatists are the villains throughout the series, but they aren’t ever the real antagonists. While there are a handful of good also-rans for that position (including Darth Maul, who we discover didn’t actually die when Obi-Wan cut him in half at the end of The Phantom Menace, and who gets his own backstory and storyline toward the end of the series), the real bad guys are Count Dooku and Darth Sidious. Yet while the Jedi know about Dooku and fight him over and over again, Darth Sidious manages to keep himself concealed, hiding right under their noses the entire time. His assumed character of the genial old man, Senator and later Supreme Chancellor Palpatine leaves them completely fooled. For all of their connection to the Force, they never sense his true motives and character in spite of being with him and fighting to defend him against attacks that were all ultimately orchestrated by him for years. In short, they think their enemy is one thing when in reality it is another entirely.

As followers of Jesus, it’s easy to let our minds (not to mention our hearts) drift in the direction of thinking the people around us who oppose us in one way or another. These opponents may be primarily ideological, or they may be more physically threating (consider the more than 16,000 Christians murdered for their faith in Nigeria from 2019-2023, for example), but they are our enemies. Or so we think. And this is an easy thought to understand our thinking. After all, we can see them. We can interact with them. The connection between the actions they are taking or the words they are speaking (or writing) and the hard times we are facing is easy to make. It is a simple slide from being burdened by them to being irritated at them to hating them. And when we start thinking of people as our enemies, we find ourselves able to justify all kinds of things that don’t fall very cleanly in line with the example of Jesus…you know, the guy we are following as Lord.

See, Jesus told us to love one another after the pattern of His own love for us. He didn’t include any caveats in that command either. Whether people are kind and gracious with us or any flavor of ugly, we’re supposed to show them the love of Christ. We are to be kind and generous and gentle and humble and gracious and compassionate and so on and so forth. That’s the standard. For everybody. Enemy or not. In fact, Jesus told us explicitly that we are to love our enemies and pray for them. That’s one of those more uncomfortable commands we’d rather ignore than keep (and have successfully ignored far too many times throughout our history to our shame). Because Jesus made clear that we are to love everybody, including the people we would otherwise put into the category of “enemy,” something begins to become clear in terms of how we should see the world as His followers. People aren’t our enemies.

If we are going to win the battle we are in to advance God’s kingdom, we have to correctly identify our enemy. What made the Clone Wars conflict drag out so long (besides good TV ratings) was that the Jedi were spending all their time fighting the wrong enemy. Untold countless numbers of lives were lost, and unimaginable chaos and human suffering was unleashed because they didn’t really understand who they were fighting. Now, in an ultimate sense, we know that God’s kingdom is going to be victorious in the end because He’s God and the other side never actually stood something like a meaningful chance, but still we live in the battle over the course of our lives. There are active and concerted efforts to stop the advance of God’s kingdom through the church and the work of His people on the part of various forces in this world. We are threatened physically. We are mocked and insulted repeatedly. We are called all sorts of different names (even under the guise of merely applying accurate character labels). The battle can get rough at times.

It is made even rougher, though, when we don’t know who we are fighting. Okay, so then, who are we fighting? Who is our real enemy? Paul sheds some light on that here. Our real enemy is not physical. Our real enemy is spiritual. Our real enemy lies in the realm of idea and worldview. It is the powers that lie behind the actions that are committed against us. The people who are in league with those spiritual powers may be willing participants in their campaign, or they may be merely useful idiots, but either way, they are not our enemy. They are unique individuals created in the image of God, for whom Jesus died, and who He wants to redeem and invite into His eternal kingdom; an invitation He intends to extend through us.

When we recognize who our real enemy is, we are freed to show them compassion. They are bound by forces they don’t understand. We didn’t when we were similarly bound. Even when they fight against us, we can still be gentle and kind with them like we would be gentle and kind with a toddler who is fighting against our help in caring for a wound because he doesn’t understand that the small pain we might be causing them to experience in challenging them with hard-to-grasp ideas or calls to go against family or community pressure to remain at their ideological post is but a momentary discomfort ahead of a much deeper and lasting healing. We can be patient with them because the Gospel is hard to accept, and often takes time to finally wrap our minds and hearts around to the point that we are willing to receive it as true and right. We can be generous with them because our God has been generous with us in reaching out to us when we were lost and wandering around in spiritual darkness ourselves.

At the same time, we have to be ruthless with the ideas and worldviews that are keeping people stuck in sin. Those are the problem. Those are what keep people blind to the truth and running back over and over again to sinful patterns that unleash destruction in their own lives and in the world around them. We go to great lengths to show why those ideas are bad and wrong and destructive. We seek to utterly demolish them out of existence if we are able. We look to discredit them so thoroughly that they don’t ever see the light of day in anyone’s mind ever again. That’s our battle. That’s our enemy. When we know it, we can fight appropriately. We can fight after the pattern Jesus demonstrated for us.