My family loves watching high-quality nature documentaries like BBC’s Planet Earth. I call them theological documentaries—even when the people who make them don‘t share my biblical convictions that God is the sovereign creator and that humans have a God-given role to rule over the nature that these films showcase.

What would it be like to watch a high-quality nature documentary that honors the Creator? Watch The Riot and the Dance—Part 1: Earth.

After I read Doug Wilson’s take on this new film, I wanted to see it.

My kids enjoyed it so much that they begged Jenni and me to watch it twice in one weekend.

Here’s an 80-second trailer for the 80-minute film:

The film features Doug Wilson’s brother Gordon Wilson (B.S., education/biology, University of Idaho; M.S., entomology, University of Idaho; Ph.D., environmental science and public policy, George Mason University). He is author of The Riot and the Dance: Foundational Biology.

Gordon Wilson mixes a creative sense of humor with fascinating and unlikely close-ups of animals. Unlike most nature documentaries, this one shows a human being interacting with nature. It does not preach the sermon that secular documentaries often do: Untouched nature is the ideal, and animals are as valuable as (or even more valuable than) humans.

(God commands humans to subdue the earth—to rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground [Genesis 1:28]. And Jesus asserts that humans are more valuable than animals [see Matthew 6:26; 10:31; 12:12].)

The film is also funny and engaging. My daughters were belly laughing about seals and mesmerized by snakes.

Wilson narrates with wit and wisdom. Our nine-year-old daughter was quoting him on a family walk the day after we first watched the film: “To be bored in this world is to be boring in this world.”

We’re looking forward to Part 2: Water (coming in 2019).

More info about the film here.