Mankurt Phenomena

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Mankurt Phenomena

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By Stephen W. Hiemstra

If centering our lives on the divine image helps us model our lives on Christ, then neglecting or rejecting that image leaves us de-centered. What does de-centering look like?

In the extreme, de-centered people are often contenders for a Darwin Award,⁠1 that is, careless to the point of being self-destructive. This week in Florida, for example, a man obsessed that another driver had taken a shot at him began shooting up his own car with an automatic pistol, all of which was recorded on dashcam video (Kika 2022). While de-centered people are often described as psychiatric, such descriptions focus on the effect without diagnosing the cause.

When we focus on the image of God, less effort is required to maintain a healthy balance that cannot easily be achieved in other ways.

The Mankurt Phenomena

The Turkish word, mankurt, refers to a slave who has forgotten who he is and, as a consequence, can be put to work doing dirty, dishonorable work without serious objection.⁠2 A Turkish child carried off by Mongol raiders in the twelfth century and raised as a Mongol would be described as a mankurt.

A mankurt differs from a renegade in the underlying problem. A renegade has primarily betrayed his community while a mankurt has primarily betrayed himself (or herself).

The mankurt’s lost identity is a de-centering problem, which is why the mankurt’s master is able to manipulate them into taking on the most despicable activities. The child soldier is often a modern mankurt. Human traffickers employ a similar strategy when they de-center victims with drugs. Torture and brain washing refer to a similar de-centering tactics used to breakdown and interrogate prisoners.

The idea of a mankurt becomes a social problem when media, drug use, and dysfunctional subcultures de-center large numbers of people, leaving them alone and vulnerable. At the heart of this cultural crisis is a spiritual problem—we have become de-centered from the image of God.

Biblical De-centering Stories

The Bible cites several several stories of societies that have become de-centered. The most famous of these are Sodom and Gomorrah, and Nineveh.

The story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is often interpreted primarily in terms of the judgment of God on these two cities for their sexual sin, including homosexual sin. Yet, the context of the story is a dialogue between God and Abraham that begins with: “The LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?” (Gen 18:17-18) While the judgment of the cities is topical, the story focuses on Abraham’s handling of God’s disclosure. What does Abraham do? Abraham immediately intercedes for Sodom and Gomorrah, knowing that his self-absorbed nephew, Lot, lives near Sodom.

The key phrase in Abraham’s intercession is: “Will you [God] indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” (Gen 18:23) God does not spare the cities, but he does send his angel to rescue Lot and his family.

In this passage, God reveals his judgment to Abraham, a stand in for the rest of us, to see how Abraham will react. In this example, Abraham passes the test when he exhibits compassion for the cities and engages God in intercessory prayer.

The counter-example arises in the story of the Prophet Jonah. In this short story, we read: “Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” (Jonah 1:1-2) God’s disclosure to Jonah is similar to that of Abraham. Nineveh is another evil city, that God told his prophet that he would destroy. But unlike Sodom and Gomorrah, God offers the city an alternative by sending Jonah to: “call out against it.”

Nineveh was the hometown of Sennacherib king of Assyria, who had seized all of Judea, except for Jerusalem (Isa 36:1). Jonah hated the Ninevites and, instead of going to preach God’s mercy to them, he got on a ship to escape from God and his mission. Then, as every Sunday school kid knows, a storm came up, the sailors tossed Jonah overboard, and he is swallowed by a whale that, after three days, spits him up on a beach. God then repeats his request for Jonah to go to Nineveh.

Listen to why Jonah refused to go: “And he prayed to the LORD and said, O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.” (Jonah 4:2) In this response, Jonah recites Exodus 34:6, which recounts God’s character traits. Knowing God is merciful, Jonah refused to preach repentance to the Ninevites, but later does so reluctantly and they do repent, averting God’s wrath, much to Jonah’s consternation (Jonah 3:10, 4:1).

While we want to focus on these examples as examples of sin, scripture clearly focuses on our response to God’s disclosures. The sin is what it is. Still, de-centered people are rightly an object of ministry.

Centering Brings Healing

In 2012, I worked at Providence Hospital as a chaplain intern and requested assignment to the Alzheimer’s unit in Carroll Manor. There I met a man who I will call Albert.

Albert spent his days wandering up and down the halls in the lock-down unit. Albert would come up to you and attempt to talk, but could only blather incoherently, which disturbed him greatly. Other patients could talk; Albert could only blather.

One Friday afternoon, I recruited some patients, including Albert, to attend Happy Hour, a punch and cookie affair where they often invited musicians to entertain the patients. That afternoon, a jazz saxophonist played. My patients, including Albert, got up and danced to the music. Alzheimer’s patients, unlike other seniors, always have fun because they have forgotten what it means to be shy and embarrassed.

Before we were done, Albert had danced with at least three different women and he came back to the unit speaking in complete sentences. His awakening lasted another six weeks that I know about. His joy at hearing Jazz music and dancing healed him of his former blathering, a miraculous event.

Alzheimer’s patients can be described as time travelers as their disease interfers with their ability to distinguish present experiences from past memories. They get lost in the clouds; totally de-centered. In Albert’s case, jazz music helped him center his thoughts and restored his cognitive abilities, at least for a time.

In the same way, focusing on the image of God centers the rest of us.

References

Kika, Thomas. 2022. “Road Rage Shooting Captured by In-Car Camera Viewed More Than 450K Times.” Newsweek. 31 January. Online: https://www.newsweek.com/road-rage-shooting-captured-car-camera-viewed-more-450k-times-1674293.

Footnotes

1 https://DarwinAwards.com/.

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mankurt.