The Church, Not the State, Should Decide Whether to Report a Child Molester, and Pastors Should Defy Subpoenas

Actually, counseling is not confidential, at least not in this sense. Biblical counseling in the context of the church could always (conceivably) lead to very public church discipline. This is why a pastor should never promise absolute confidentiality. He should always (of course) be discrete, but there will be times when he has a moral obligation to inform the elders of his church, or in drastic circumstances, the civil magistrate. If a man has molested children who are in his home, then those children must be protected from him. Unfortunately, we live in a time when the social workers who rescue the children might treat them as unbiblically as their foster father did. […] But there is a sense in which there is a biblical confidentiality. The decision to inform the civil magistrate is a decision which is made by the church and not by the magistrate. A worthy pastor would defy any subpoena which tried to force information from him.