Spiritually called to take part in Lakota Sloux rituals, the author of The Pipe and Christ was led to experiences extremely dif-ferent from his upbringing. Investigations led him into experiences that were both foreign and awesome; for example, that there are not only spirits of heaven and hell but also of Earth.

Searching for understanding, he con-sulted the medicine men and pastors of the Rosebud Indian Reservation to help him reconcile the many apparent theological and spiritual incompatibilities between these two religions. A subsequent six-year dialogue was fruitful, and it showed how the Lakota and Christian religions are both parallel and different each having an en-Juring, authentic place in salvation history.

The medicine men and elders at those meetings asked that The Pipe and Christ be written to explain the native rituals and how they are related to the Christian way. Like Parly German Jesuit missionaries, William Stolzman, whose Indian name is Wanbll Yokalne (First Eagle), shows in an orderly, cipar, and precise way that the medicine men were right when they said that "the two religions fit together."