Participants at the Christian Consultation agreed that it is essential that minor-attracted adults not be seen as "qualitatively different" from people who are not attracted to minors. It is therefore important, several participants said, to note the wide variety of beliefs and behavior among minor-attracted adults. As Alan put it, "When someone comes to you and tells you that he's attracted to minors, a very basic issue is: Do I trust this person?"

He added after the gathering, "If one knows another's moral (religious) stance and related actions, you're on far different ground than with a 'stranger.'"

Several participants noted that mandatory reporting laws and some denominational statements on confidentiality issues had complicated matters for both the minor-attracted adult and the pastor advising him or. The ambiguity of some of the child abuse laws and the denominational statements seemed to suggest to the participants that even celibate minor-attracted adults could not be certain that confidentiality would be maintained if they told a pastor.

The discussion of spiritual counseling in the morning of November 3 led to an afternoon discussion of secular counseling. Ted opened the conversation by suggesting that forced therapy cannot help an adult who is attracted to minors. "It's like forcing someone to have a spiritual life. You can force someone to take an antibiotic to save his life, but how can you force someone to undergo psychological or spiritual change?"

Anecdotes poured forth from the participants as to what sort of advice they had received through psychological counseling. One therapist told a minor-attracted adult little more than that he should stay away from boys, in case the boys should want to engage in sexual activity or the patient should become the victim of false charges. Another therapist, counseling a minor-attracted adult in a time when no distinction was made between homosexuality and pederasty, encouraged the man to date women. A more recent therapist recommended that his patient raise his age of attraction by looking at adult pornography.

Two participants reported more unusual responses from their counselors. One therapist told a minor-attracted adult, "You should try having sex with boys; you'll discover how unsatisfying it is." Another participant said he was told, "Don't fool around with local kids - go further afield."

Commenting on these stories of therapy, Alan said, "The enemy you're dealing with is ignorance, and when ignorance is coupled with arrogance, the result is very dangerous."

In a small attempt to provide help, the participants put together a statement offering advice to pastors ministering to celibate minor-attracted adults. The statement began by noting that, while some material has been available to pastors ministering to sex offenders, little material has previously been available to pastors ministering to minor-attracted adults who have not acted on their sexual feelings.

A sobering reminder of how important such ministry can be was provided by a participant toward the end of the Christian Consultation. He said that when a man he knew told a pastor of his attraction to boys, the participant traveled to see the pastor. He urged the pastor to help form a support circle to provide the man with (as the Christian Consultation's statement put it) "the same support and accountability that other congregation members routinely receive from each other." The pastor "just didn't want to deal with it," the participant said, and no further action was taken. Some time later, the pastor's congregation member was charged by the police with child sexual abuse.

The participant told others at the Christian Consultation that this episode continues to haunt him, because he feels that the turning point in the life of the minor-attracted adult may have occurred at the moment when the pastor declined to offer assistance to him. "If at that point the pastor had put together a support circle, with people to whom [the minor-attracted adult] could have been accountable, then the rest of the story might not have happened."