The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports:
Naveed Haq, now widely portrayed as a Muslim American so angry at Israel that he shot up a Jewish charity in Seattle, had recently converted to Christianity.
Recall that Haq is reported to have said, “I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel,” before shooting.
The following paragraph suggests that a possible explanation — he converted, but then began to view himself as a Muslim again: “Haq, 30, told a ministry leader that he saw too much anger in Islam and wanted to find a new beginning in Christianity. He converted to Christianity, but, as with many other endeavors in his life, drifted away from the faith.”
The rest of the story discusses Haq’s life, and suggests, in my view plausibly, that the shooting was triggered by personal problems, rather than by a coherent longstanding ideology of anti-Semitic murder. Yet my guess is that ideology can’t be irrelevant here. Some people, when they have serious problems, drink. Some commit suicide (unfortunate, but still better than murder). Some decide to kill, and in particular to kill members of certain groups; and that seems like a pretty clearly ideology-driven choice, and reason to see what we can do about fighting such ideologies.
One more paragraph, for an extra ecumenical twist:
A neighbor of Haq’s parents told the Tri-City Herald that Haq expressed anger at Jews, having convinced himself that the Jewish community controls the nation’s media and economic system. The neighbor, Caleb Hales, also said Haq expressed an interest in the Mormon faith.
Since the worst that I’ve heard about Mormon-Jewish relations is that many Jews (not including me) are upset at Mormons’ attempts to posthumously baptize Holocaust victims, I can only wish that the interest had blossomed into reality.