> What ever happened to “God helps those who help themselves”
This is actually part of the problem that Evangelical Christians have in America. They believe that this is true, but this is not found anywhere in the Bible. The Bible actually teaches that mankind cannot save himself, and that we are totally reliant on God for all things.
A decade ago, religious researchers wanted to find out why Millennials didn't come back to church. For the past 50 years, people would leave the church shortly after high school, then come back in their 20s after they married and had children. But that did not happen with Millennials, and it's not happening with Generation Z.
What the researchers discovered is that what most Christians believe isn't anything close to Christian doctrine.. They labeled this new religion "moral therapeutic deism." it's an unbelievably self-centered, nebulous pseudo consumerist religion. And the most shocking finding wasn't that youth had become corrupted by liberal colleges or any other scapegoat the church blames. They found that the more involved someone was in an Evangelical church, the more likely they were to believe it. This is being taught from the pulpit. And this is not just found in "liberal" churches - it was found to be true of every single Christian denomination, from Catholic to protestant to Orthodox to liberal and conservative alike.
"God helps those who help themselves" is actually a classic heresy known as pelagianism. It was denounced over 1500 years ago by church councils. If you've ever heard of the reformation in the 1500s led by Martin Luther against the Catholic church, pelagianism was one of the major reasons the reformation was necessary.
So it's not just the extremist Christian nationalists who are fueling defiance against masks and social distancing - this problem is found in the church at large, even in liberal denominations. Because when someone tells them that they can accomplish the work in themselves that only God can, it's only one step away from taking the place of God Himself, and then they're beholden to no one: not their surrounding nation, not the people around them, and certainly not to the government.
Christian Smith's <em>Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers</em> is a very good (and depressing) read.