Theology Kills

is a podcast about letting our shame

& violence die so that life & love can thrive

Hands holding a small plant with soil that's on fire, against a dark background with a glowing halo effect.

what if God doesn’t
ask us to be correct
— just creative?


Toxic theologies have been weaponized to wound, but the gospel was always meant to be medicine. Hosts January Jaxon and Andrew McRae blend René Girard’s mimetic theory with Internal Family Systems to unveil a Christ-centered theology of integrity that heals shame, fosters embodiment, and creates contagious peace in the midst of a world at war.

Balancing scriptural insight with personal reflections, Theology Kills is a podcast for healing the bruises left by bad theology and reclaiming the gutsy, grace-filled adventure of coming fully alive in the image of Christ.

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Bad theology kills your soul. Good theology kills what’s crushing your soul.

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Listeners didn’t expect a Christian podcast to…

“not be ignorant.”
“draw from such a wide variety of source material.”
“have swearing, haha!”

what you’ll experience

We help you read Scripture through the lens of wholeness and nonviolence, so you can let go of toxic beliefs without losing the living heart of Christian faith. Each episode explores the ways that shame & violence warp our creativity, our relationships, and our sense of self — and how a more loving, embodied faith can set us free.

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Episode 1 — The Heroine’s Journey:
 Eve, Mary, and The Trap of Trying to Do It All “Right”

What if Christian faith isn’t about being correct, but about being creative? January and Andrew explore Maureen Murdock’s Heroine’s Journey through two of history’s most famous women: Eve, the mother of all, and Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Episode 2 — Creativity as Pregnancy:
 Sarah, Hannah, and Creating Love Instead of Violence

What if the Kingdom of Heaven isn’t a goal to achieve but a gift to receive? January and Andrew unpack the Bible’s quietly subversive use of pregnancy as a metaphor for creativity. Contrasting Sarah’s violence with Hannah’s trust, they follow Saint Paul in imagining a Kingdom born from cooperation instead of control.

Episode 3 — Shame as Internal Violence:
 Eve, the Serpent, and the Original Sin of Self-Abandonment


What if shame isn’t just a feeling, but an internalized form of violence? January and Andrew explore a reading of Genesis 3 through the eyes of the victim, interpreting humanity’s Fall into sin as an inflicted wound, not a willful disobedience.

Episode 4 — Blame as External Violence:
 Cain, Abel, and the Temptation to Make Someone Else the Problem


What if blame isn’t a path to justice, but a catharsis for pain we don’t know how to bear? January and Andrew continue their reading of Genesis, connecting René Girard’s prohibition, sacrifice, and myth to Internal Family Systems managers, firefighters and exiles.

Episode 5 — Creativity and Trust:
 Mary the Mother of Jesus and the Upside-Down Power of Vulnerability


What if vulnerability isn’t a weakness to overcome, but a creative power to embrace? January and Andrew turn to Mary, the mother of Jesus, as the counterpoint to Eve — a living model of what it means to trust God despite confusion, risk, and pain.

Episode 6 — Creativity and The Body:
 The Scapegoating of Embodiment and How Communion Puts an End to Purity Culture

What if your body isn’t a liability to control or escape, but a site of divine revelation and relationship? January and Andrew confront the contamination anxiety that distorts Christian theologies of the body, and explore how the Incarnation contradicts that disgust by encountering, instead of expelling, the Other.

Episode 7 — Creativity and Integrity:
 Martha, Peter, and a Path to Nonviolent Conflict

What if peace isn’t the absence of conflict, but the presence of integrity? January and Andrew explore Jesus’ startling claim that he came not to bring peace, but division — and how his presence exposes the false peace we create through compliance, control, and avoidance.

Episode 8 — Father of Lies, Thief of Trust:
 Disbelieving the Devil and Giving Our Attention Back to God

What if obedience isn’t about mindless rule-following, but about whose voice we trust to help us interpret our reality? January and Andrew discuss Girard’s concept of misrecognition, or méconnaissance, to understand how “The Father of Lies” warps the human imagination and how the Crucifixion re-orients us.

Episode 9 — Creativity and Repentance:
 Law, Love, and Learning to Create Peace

Coming soon…

  • “This podcast helped me realize that it’s okay — it’s more than okay — to bring the ideas that most move us and interest us into conversation with our Christianity. I love the idea that we can play/be creative even in the area of our own theology. Thank you!”

    —Teresa Stone

  • “Honestly, I was skeptical — but this was lots of fun to listen to. Extremely relatable and a great chemistry/dynamic between the cohosts. This changed my idea of what a Christian podcast is.”

    —Matthew Gordon

  • “Great banter and raw honesty. I didn’t expect a Christian podcast to give me ideas that could help me look inward at things I have avoided.”

    —Candie

  • “This is for anyone tired of facile answers to deep questions about relating to ourselves and relating to God. You’ll appreciate how January and Andrew articulate complex ideas with humor and grace. You're going to want to listen more than once! (I did!)”

    —Rev. Kari Reiten

  • “What I feel most is the infectious enthusiasm and life force that is created between the hosts. It holds a spark that can rekindle faith. Their connection is palpable and the perspectives they’re bringing to the conversation breathe life back into the teachings.”

    —Jessica Peterson

  • “January’s faith is largely orthodox in its content — she doesn’t throw out important traditional concepts. But, she comes to those concepts with tools of contemporary outsider culture. It all feels authentic and integral, not like she’s trying to ‘make tradition cool for the kids’ or something. She truly sees the radical heart of Christianity.”

    —Teresa Stone

meet your hosts

January Jaxon and Andrew McRae are lay theologians with a passion for the magic & mess of living in nonviolent imitation of Christ.

Black and white photograph of a woman with glasses and a nose ring, posed against a stone wall background, mocked up to look like a paper taped to a wall.

January Jaxon

is a Pacific Northwest writer, designer, and coach hosting spaces that blend creative practice with emotionally healthy theology. She helps people find empowerment through creativity & courage instead of through control, so we can quit brutally trying to “fix” each other (or ourselves!) and focus instead on what we each contribute to a future of collective flourishing.

Black and white photograph of a smiling man wearing glasses and shirt, posed against a stone wall background, mocked up to look like a paper taped to a wall.

Andrew McRae

is a roamer who started ESL gigging to feed his habit of wanting to live someplace far away. The days of impulsive one-way transoceanic travel have passed. The roaming, however, continues — mostly through the pages of graphic novels — as he searches out stories that might spark the curiosity of language learners. Currently, his faraway residence is his childhood home in Kentucky.

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our mission

To proclaim Christ by recovering a theology that empowers trust, fosters embodiment, and invigorates creativity.

our vision

A Church that relinquishes shame & rivalry and lives in imitation of Christ as a model of integrity, vulnerability, and divine non-violence in a wounded world.

our approach

We help you read Scripture through a lens of wholeness and nonviolence, so you can let go of toxic beliefs without losing the living heart of Christian faith.

The institutions may be dying,

but the gospel is

coming alive.

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Theology Kills is a new podcast out now on all your favorite pod platforms. We’re talking about a theology of Christian creativity through the lenses of Eve and Mary, Maureen Murdock’s #heroinesjourney , René Girard’s #mimeti
“Peace isn’t the absence of conflict. It’s the presence of integrity.” Curious about a theology that heals shame, fosters embodiment, and points us toward a lit-up life of deeply rooted joy? We gotchu. Theology Kills is a new