I don't think the article is trying to justify what the guy did. It is trying to explore the background and specific experiences that made him do what he did, f

I don't think the article is trying to justify what the guy did. It is trying to explore the background and specific experiences that made him do what he did, from the point of view of someone who clearly isn't thrilled about evangelical Christianity. Although this kind of explanation can and are often used to apologize for bad behavior, it can be valuable to learn the mechanisms by which people are pushed toward those kinds of behavior. Learning what encourages people to commit certain crimes in our own society, for example, can help us reduce the incidence of said crimes. Instead of just pointing fingers at religious fanatics and blaming them for everything, we could do something more constructive and try to reach out to troubled kids when their dad loses his medical license (which is what happened to this particular guy) so that they don't need to seek refuge in a fantasy project. That's the kind of insight that a detailed post-mortem can bring, both in technology and in the society.