ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the recent literature that seeks to locate the Christian faith of the color-line breaking baseball player, Jackie Robinson, as the primary explanation for his ability to endure extreme racism on and off of the field. The film 42, a biopic of baseball player Jackie Robinson released in 2013, did well at the box office. 42 expectedly focuses on racial acrimony that Robinson faced as well as the heroism of both Robinson and Branch Rickey as they made history. Robinson’s politics are difficult to pin down. He was a moderate Republican who supported the party’s Presidential candidates throughout the turbulent 1960s, though he chaired the “Republicans for Johnson Committee” in 1964 after Nelson Rockefeller lost to Barry Goldwater. Michael G. Long and Chris Lamb’s Jackie Robinson: A Spiritual Biography is a much more complete, erudite rendition of Robinson’s spirituality and its effects on his life.
