Jul 26th, 2007
Planet Earth: A Theological Documentary
Jenni and I had the opportunity to watch these DVD series, and they are excellent! Over the last three years, we have checked out a few dozen nature DVDs from the library (e.g., many produced by IMAX), but none of those compares to Planet Earth! Wow. It includes five DVDs: the first four contain eleven 50-minute episodes, and the fifth contains three episodes on “the future” and environmentalism. The last ten minutes or so of the eleven episodes on disks 1-4 share interesting stories about what the film crew endured to secure such unusual footage. (Warning: Occasionally a crew member’s speech is a bit offensive.) The footage on the main episodes is stunningly majestic and detailed, colorful and brilliant. The vistas are breathtaking. I learned something new in every episode, usually viewing (1) fascinating animals and plants on God’s earth that I never knew existed and (2) behavior by well-known organisms that shocked me because I had never heard of such things (e.g., a pride of lions attacking an elephant). (Cf. Wikipedia’s overview.)
In preparation for watching these, we listened to John Piper’s sermon “The Pleasure of God in Creation,” which Piper later published as this chapter in The Pleasures of God, my favorite book by Piper. Thrilling! Moving! Worshipful! Watching first-class films about God’s planet is a worshipful experience—even if the people who make the films have entirely different agendas! How many more reasons do we have to praise God than did the authors of Scripture, whose knowledge of God’s earth was significantly limited in comparison to ours today? Piper calls Ranger Rick “a theological journal,” and I think it is appropriate to call Planet Earth a theological documentary.
Related: Piper on “Planet Earth”
Ditto on Planet Earth and ditto on The Pleasures of God!!! Never before were Paul’s words “so they are without excuse” (Rom 1:20) more clear to me than when I watched those DVDs.
I agree. My son got me the series for Father’s Day. I have not watched all of them but I would recommend them.
I had seen this advertised while visiting Target a week or two ago, and so I decided to see if I could borrow this from my library. I am now something like #150 in line.
I hope I still live here when it’s finally my turn to watch it!