Pray for Kabeer, Chapter III: The Followers, the Courtroom Drama and the Next Chapter

Published on Sports Illustrated, July 16, 2020

Robert Mathis was looking for answers. The search had begun during the last part of his playing career, when he started reading full books of the Bible. But two years into retirement, it was consuming him.

During his playing days for the Colts, Mathis, a five-time Pro Bowl pass rusher, was a regular attendee of the team’s Saturday-night chapel service, and he frequently volunteered with community ministry initiatives organized by the team chaplain. But deep in his spirit, something about Christianity never sat right with him. As Mathis puts it, “Something was tugging at me. It just doesn’t line up.”

He had stayed with the organization after retirement, and the 2018 season was his second as an assistant coach working with pass rushers. He had more time on his hands, and he spent it digging for religious meaning and into his own personal history, long hours researching his lineage and assembling his family tree. He downloaded an app about Black history in the Bible.

That January, after the Colts’ season wrapped up, a former teammate reached out. Daniel Muir wanted to know whether Mathis would be interested in partnering with him in the training business; Mathis invited him to his house to talk about it.

Muir showed up wearing a black T-shirt with HEBREW in white letters across the front. Before they even talked about the coaching opportunity, Mathis asked Muir about the shirt’s meaning. Muir explained that he is a Hebrew—a real Hebrew man—and that Mathis is one, too. Muir took out his phone and pulled up a video a friend from his time with the Packers had recently sent him.

By then, Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila had already been to Tennessee to visit the headquarters of the Straitway Truth Ministry, a controversial group that, due to some extreme religious beliefs, the controlling behavior of its leadership and its devotion to ideas often associated with sovereign citizenry, is considered by many to be a cult. Within months, KGB was sending videos of Straitway’s leader, Pastor Charles Dowell, to Muir. Those videos had Muir paging through his Bible, looking for scripture to prove Dowell wrong. After a week of close Bible reading, Muir found himself agreeing with Dowell’s interpretations.

Now, Muir was introducing Dowell and Straitway to Mathis. The two former Colts hardly talked about the training business that night. “I want one of those shirts,” Mathis told Muir.

Mathis is the latest ex-NFL player confirmed to have joined Straitway, though as with KGB, he and his family seem to have paid a price. And, after seeing KGB go through a series of bizarre interactions with the court system this year—culminating in deputies Tasering him during an appearance last March—many worry about just where this path leads.