Out Our Way: How many Montanans are there?

Out our way, folks from across the rest of the country see us as Montanans. They see folks from Miles City, Great Falls, Missoula and Butte as Montanans, too.

It’s only in Montana we make note of the difference.

Years ago, I was at a PBR event — Professional Bull Rider circuit — and Flint Rasmussen — once a teacher in Havre and now the main entertainer in the PBR — went up into the stands in Billings and asked a man where he was from.

“Kalispell,” the man replied. 

“Well,” said Flint, “welcome to Montana.”

Most of the crowd roared while the poor guy from Kalispell — as well as some Missoula folk near us — didn’t get the joke.     

Of course, it works the other way, too. I was at a regional Church meeting in which some folks had no idea there were people east of the divide and had no idea where Havre, Chinook, Malta or Glasgow were. 

“Are they in the state?”      My favorite story however was the woman from Kalispell who attended a regional Presbytery meeting held in tiny Whitlash and later told a Church executive that she had been terrified that the rough cowboy preacher from Havre might start shooting up the place. If she had known me she would know I was a pussycat … and if she had ever seen me shoot she would know the safest place in the world is right in front of me when I am shooting.

Now, the point of all this is that we Montanans are not all the same and there are regional and cultural differences — but we are still all Montanans. Maybe folks from Missoula or Kalispell are more used to Birkenstocks than cowboy boots, and maybe I couldn’t stand up in a pair of skis or navigate the bunny slope, but we are still all part of this fantastic state.  The rancher, the farmer, the miner, the railroader, the merchant, banker college professor and attorney are all Montanans. We need them all to make this great state work.

The same is, of course, true of the Church. Like Montanans, Christians come from a variety of different backgrounds and life styles. Though we may know the difference between a Southern Baptist and an Anglican bishop, the outside world doesn’t.   There is no difference between a Mother Theresa and a Jerry Falwell as far as they are concerned — for regardless of what Church we claim, even F.B.P.O. Christians — “For Burial Purposes Only” — wear the brand. To the outside world we are all one. 

Maybe there is something to that.

Maybe we need to remember that whatever part of God’s country we are from, we are still God’s people.

I am not going to necessarily agree with a fundamentalist Pharisee or a secularized Sadducee, but they may still be fellow citizens of the Kingdom of God.

Going back to the bull-riding event in Billings, I get the joke, Flint.

Many folks from the western side of the divide may be different from us. But Montana is a big state — big enough for cities as well as farms, big enough for huge mountains as well as rolling hills and vast prairies. Big enough for different folks to find “home” in different places and still belong to the whole.  That’s what makes Montana what it is. And that same variety and unity is what makes the Church of Jesus Christ — be it storefront Pentecostal to Cathedral Roman Catholic — into the one universal Church it really is. Let’s be as proud of our great Church as we are of our great state.

John Bruington is the pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Havre and a fellow seeker of Jesus Christ. He and his horse Goliath are proud to be fellow Montanans and Christians with all fellow citizens of the state and the Kingdom.