Those kind of responses Amos quoted are more or less the same you'd get from a lot of people, especially older people, in places like Ireland.

"I'll see you next week, please God"

"Thank God I was able to help you."

Taking charge of one's own destiny in such a culture is a rare and usually heretical event.

That seems to me stretching it a bit. When someone takes up arms against a foreign invader - however mistakenly that might be - I think I'd call that "taking charge of one's own destiny". Wherever they happened to live.