The three sacred sites, Devils Tower, situated in the Lakota Black Hills; the Four Corners of the Hopi in Arizona; and the Winnemem Wintu's Mount Shasta, are places of extraordinary beauty.

In the early 1990s, Native Americans assessed the AIRFA court battles and concluded that the non-Native public had virtually no understanding of what such sacred places meant to Indian communities, why they were important, and how their protection was fundamental to the free exercise of their religions.

Christopher McLeod, who had already been filming with the Hopi and Winnemem for five years, decided to add the Devils Tower story "to round out the film geographically, and to include the legal conflict over climbing a sacred site - because ultimately America is a nation of laws, and many value conflicts ultimately are worked out through legal arguments."

In the Light of Reverence is narrated by the Bay Area actor, Peter Coyote, and Tantoo Cardinal of the Métis people.

In the Light of Reverence features interviews with Vine Deloria, Jr. of the Standing Rock Sioux, Florence Jones of the Winnemem Wintu, and Charles Wilkinson.