Parable of the drowning man

Frequently retold within the American Protestant community (although Catholics tell the story as well, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jewish versions have been recorded), the story is considered to reinforce the aphorism that "God helps those who help themselves" and rebuke those who believe that God works through divine miracles, preferring instead for people to do his work on Earth.

Those who have considered its origins speculate that it might have started as a joke at the expense of Pentecostalism, an evangelical denomination that believes God still works miracles on Earth.

A deeper reading has it as a way Christians reconciled a belief in an omnipotent God with the increasing ability of human technology to accomplish that which had previously seemed impossible.

A typical version, as recounted on Psychology Today's website in 2009:[1] A storm descends on a small town, and the downpour soon turns into a flood.

[5] The divine figure at the end who delivers the punchline is also sometimes not God but St. Peter,[6][7] in his capacity as the gatekeeper to heaven, or Jesus.

[8] Scholar David Cooper similarly records the parable as involving three boats, albeit taking place in the usual setting of a rising flood rather than the open sea.

"[9][a] In her book Replenishing the Earth, Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai retells the parable as "a popular Buddhist story", in which the protagonist appeals to Guanyin for intercession.

[12] Some versions end with a reminder that the protagonist was actually not as faithful as he believed himself to be, since he failed to recognize the rescuers as God's promise being kept.

It began to appear in print in the early 1980s, used by a speaker at the 1982 Law of the Sea conference to illustrate a point about missed opportunities,[21] but it is believed to have been in circulation since at least the mid-20th century, possibly even earlier than that, when it may have taken place just with boats, before helicopters became widely used.

James Hudnut-Beumler, a professor of American religious history at Vanderbilt University, speculates that it might have originated as a joke at the expense of Pentecostalism, an evangelical denomination which holds, contrary to most other Protestants, that God still works miracles on Earth.

"[2] "This story has many morals" Maathai writes:[12] ... that divine providence takes many forms; that our community around us offers many examples of holiness in action; that we should not keep waiting for miracles to occur when human agency may be all that is needed; that we would be foolish to squander the opportunities that may be right in front of us in favor of the highly unlikely million-to-one chanceA common lesson taken from it is that God helps those who help themselves.

[22][23][24] "None of us can expect God to sit back and do it all for us," Margaret Erickson, a Ventura County, California, supervisor, said after retelling the parable while testifying in 1990 before the U. S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure's subcommittee on investigation and oversight.

"Many people have trouble recognizing help when it is being offered," say Chip Sawicki and Vernon Roberts in their 2011 book The Gift of Success.

[3] "It is our ability to reason that will save us, not our blind faith", writes another author who quotes Galileo's statement that he did not believe that God gave humanity its intellectual capacities with the intent that it would not be used.

[29] Randall Smith, writing for Robert Royal's website The Catholic Thing, finds this approach dovetails with Church teachings.

"Christians who believe in the sacramentality of all creation have no trouble accepting that God can work in and through natural causes" Smith wrote.

"[30] Matt Cardin, in Ghosts, Spirits and Psychics, a survey of the paranormal, attributes the parable to British rabbi Lionel Blue, commenting that it "illustrates some of the different understandings in Semitic religions of the ways in which God might act."

"[34] Slate religion correspondent Molly Olmstead believes that invoking the parable to combat COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy might be counterproductive.

University of California at San Diego professor John Evans, who also studies the politics of evangelical Christianity, agrees, noting that no major religious leaders have opposed the vaccine.

[19] SMU's Allen suggests those who invoke the parable in public writing are "using it as a hammer" that serves to validate pro-vaccine beliefs rather than persuade skeptics.

Chang nevertheless believes that the parable can be a useful conversation opener for the Christian vaccine-hesitant, as long as it comes from someone, usually a similar faithful person or pastor, the listener trusts.

[19] In the final scene of "Take This Sabbath Day", episode fourteen of the award-winning first season of The West Wing aired in 2000, a priest played by Karl Malden delivers the parable to the Catholic President of the United States played by Martin Sheen, who was Emmy-nominated for the episode.

The priest claims that God sent the President "a priest, a rabbi, and a Quaker" to counsel him and his staff to issue a last-minute commutation of a convict's death sentence, when the President could not find a reason to commute it on legal or political grounds and found no help from God when he prayed for wisdom.

The prisoner is executed, putting the president in the position of the man who has drowned, having ignored the aid sent to him; the episode ends with him giving confession to the priest.

The parable is not referred to in the story, but critics believed it was an allusion to it, as the episode focused on an Episcopal priest trying to keep his church in a time when mainstream religion has been in decline after the unexplained disappearance of 2 percent of the world's population.

At first it seems he will as he wins enough money gambling to pay off the mortgage, but an injury suffered in a fight defending two members of a cult prevents him from making the deadline, and he loses the church.

[35][36] Young Rose Sandford tells the story, citing the Aaron Sorkin version from West Wing episode 14, season 1, in the movie Leave the World Behind (film) (2023) when assessing the situation the family is in.