A Drowning Man

The parable of the drowning man, also known as Two Boats and a Helicopter, is a short story, often told as a joke, most often about a devoutly Christian man, frequently a minister, who refuses several rescue attempts in the face of approaching floodwaters, each time telling the rescuers that God will save him. He finally drowns in the flood and, standing before God, asks why he was not saved. God replies that He sent the rescuers that the man turned down. Frequently retold within the American Protestant community (although Catholics tell the story as well, and Hindu, Buddhist, and Jewish versions have been recorded), the story is considered to reinforce the aphorism that "God helps those who help themselves" contrary to the idea that believers should passively await miracles. Outside of the religious context, it has been used by speakers and writers discussing marketing strategies, politics and workplace safety training. During the COVID-19 pandemic, modified versions, in which the religious man refuses several entreaties to wear a mask and later to get vaccinated, finding out after his death from the disease that God motivated those people as well, circulated among Christian communities to counter vaccine hesitancy. Several novelists, including Jeffery Deaver and Richard Ford, have had characters tell the story in their fiction; an episode of the TV series The Leftovers also takes its title from this story. It is not known when the story was first told, although it is believed to date to the early or mid-20th century United States. 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.