In a scene that could easily double as a sketch from a late-night comedy show, a white pastor in a church-branded t-shirt strolls the sidewalks of Albany, posing, smiling wide, and handing out brand new Nikes to black kids like some corporate-funded Saint Nick.

Not Bibles. Not the gospel. Just sneakers. Branded, boxed, and ready to buy off the soul. And he beams while doing it—posing for the camera like he’s cracked the code of urban redemption with a pair of size 10 Air Max shoes.

Meet Pastor Charlie Muller of Victory Church—a man whose definition of “victory” apparently involves trading sneakers and Visa gift cards for handguns and social media praise. His initiative, now making the rounds on the local news circuit and his own Facebook page, is being peddled as a bold, groundbreaking campaign to end gun violence in Albany.

The plan is to give five pairs of Nike sneakers to any teen who turns in a firearm. Because, apparently, what Jesus really meant by “lay down your weapons” was “cash in your Glock for Jordans.”

Never mind the optics—the white savior complex practically screams from every photo like a Kanye album cover. I mean, if there ever was such a thing, this is virtue signaling dipped in vanilla guilt and wrapped in a swoosh.

He has a new theme every year. For example, in 2019, it was guns for Walmart gift cards.

Of course, Muller doesn’t look anything at all like a man shepherding redeemed souls. He looks like a mall-walking retail missionary handing out breadcrumbs to kids who need a feast of truth. It’s the kind of cringeworthy PR campaign that would make even the most progressive non-profit strategist wince. Because if this is the church’s new strategy, then sin is just a branding problem, and salvation comes in a shoebox.

And let’s talk about the effectiveness of such foolishness. Because while Charlie Muller is busy delivering size elevens like Oprah on a bender, the street logic is running circles around him. If you’re a teen with a criminal bent and a decent sense of economics, what does this initiative scream to you?

Five pairs of shoes per gun. Shoooot! That’s not a deterrent—it’s an opportunity. An enterprising kid could lift a stolen firearm for under a hundred bucks and flip the shoe haul for five times that on the resale market. Congratulations, Charlie—you just created a cottage industry in incentivized gun theft. You’ve built the theological equivalent of a lemonade stand for juvenile felons.

Because here’s the hard truth no one wants to say out loud…a thug with murder in his heart doesn’t suddenly become a saint because he’s wearing new sneakers. This isn’t transformation—it’s glorified bribery. It’s handing out bubble gum and expecting cavities to disappear. When the church abandons the gospel, it doesn’t lose its voice—it starts speaking nonsense.

But nonsense doesn’t even begin to capture the kind of naive idiocy on display here. The sheer stupidity of believing that crime is cured with consumer goods isn’t just embarrassing—it’s dangerous. This isn’t a ill-advised experiment from a think tank. It’s a live-action sermon in futility, led by a man who thinks that virtue can be crowdfunded and that morality has a suggested retail price.

Muller genuinely seems to believe he’s doing something radical, something bold. But really, he’s just reinventing the vending machine and calling it revival. No truth, no repentance, no conviction—just transactions. Just kids being taught, once again, that they’re not image-bearers of God, but target markets for social engineering dressed in philanthropy.

How dumb do you have to be to think this is ministry? Seriously. What kind of pastor looks at a city plagued by violence and broken families and thinks, “You know what’ll fix this? Footwear.” It’s the kind of logic that would hand out pool noodles to stop a house fire.

Except pool noodles don’t empower criminals to commit more crimes.

This probably will.