In cases of sexual assault, cheap grace is doubly dangerous: It can allow a guilty party to continue his abuse while victims stay silent in fear of punishment.

In churches, a quick forgiveness for perpetrators often dovetails with strict standards of purity for women. From a young age, many Christian women are taught to dress modestly so as not to cause men to “stumble.” John Piper, a prominent pastor and theologian, has said that “a lot of Christian women are oblivious to the fact that they have some measure of responsibility” in managing men’s lust. The moralizing about dress and behavior can be a setup for victim-blaming wrapped in a spiritual veneer.

Perhaps churches have been slow to address sex crimes out of a belief that such offenses couldn’t happen among their own. It’s assumed that the culture of harassment at a place like Fox News would never come to infect a community serving God. This thinking is both naïve and theologically irresponsible: Christians, of all people, acknowledge the depths of human depravity.

In recent years, undeniable scandals at Bob Jones University, Sovereign Grace Church and Bill Gothard’s family ministry, among others, have awakened many conservative Christians to the reality of sexual assault in their own ranks. Boz Tchividjian, a grandson of the evangelist Billy Graham, is a law professor who runs Grace (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment). While the organization focuses on child abuse, Mr. Tchividjian speaks regularly on sex crimes in general. He critiques Christian organizations that respond to abuse with “institutional self-protection,” often by couching self-protection as “protecting the name of Christ.”

If conservative Christians want to protect the faith — especially in a time when they fear loss of cultural power — they must show preferential care not for the powerful but for victims. They must be just as quick to extend empathy to women who have been harassed as they are to extend forgiveness to harassers.

This is the hard work that epitomizes Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s conception of “costly grace.” An application of costly grace would mean showing perpetrators that their actions have real consequences. It would also ensure that victims are heard and given tools for healing long before there is any talk of restoring their abusers.