Lutheran update

I think I have made an interesting mistake. I mentioned in my CiF piece two Lutheran pastors who seemed to have gone crazy. The second was the odious Dr Lerle — and students of wilful self-deception are urged to the comment section in Dembski’s blog — and the first, Roland Weisselberg, who killed himself last autumn, apparently in public protest against the rise of Islam.

A kindly German reader (whose English puts my German to shame) has written to contest this. I think he is right. I had relied on the reports in (I remember) Spiegel, faz, and the AP. But it turns out they were all very probably wrong. A long and thoughtful piece suggests that his real motive was despair at the collapse of the church to which he had given his life.

you are doing Pastor Weisselberg no justice if you describe him as a crazy fundamentalist.
I followed the events last year. His suicide prompted gross misinterpretations and applause from the wrong side. The links below are relatively neutral (if you can read german). The TAZ is a left leaning newspaper with (sometimes too) close relations to the Green Party.
Being a Lutheran pastor in East Germany does not offer many rewards. It is a dream country of atheists with a church membership rate of around 10 percent. A big success of communist rule, by the way.
I personally concur with the view of Tilman Jens (2nd link). His death was the last confession of a man whose religion could not give him a direction any longer and who couldn’t bear watching it fade away.

Well, I’ve read them both now. It’s a heart-breaking story. But it really does not seem, from that evidence, that he was especially obsessed with Islam.