In all of the books you have read about the devil, you have probably never imagined him to be gainfully employed as a professor, engaged in debate with a monk called Michael or spending his down time philosophizing about rationalism, religion and the differences between the two. G.K. Chesterton, however, imagines just such a devil, and the debates that the Chesterton devil has are the foundation of the book The Ball and the Cross. The ball in the title represents the world and the cross, of course, Christianity.
The book as a whole represents the struggle that Chesterton was having within himself at the time of its writing. As well as the chapters involving Lucifer and Michael, Chesterton also presents a verbal duel between Maclan, a Jacobite Catholic, and Turnbull, a socialist atheist. If it seems that these characters are extremes, it is not an accident; most of Chesterton's arguments are between extremes at each end of the spectrum of whatever subject he is debating. Chesterton himself is generally somewhere in the middle, although one critic observed that in the latter sections of the book he seems to favor the opinions and beliefs of Maclan. Eventually, after philosophical dueling creates somewhat of a friendship between the two men; they conclude that their antagonist is not the other man with an opposing opinion but the world outside their argument that does not deem religion a subject worthy of dueling over. Chesterton, on the other hand, feels that religion is a subject of the utmost importance; if religion is not worth debating, then what is?
When it came to his own religious affiliation and beliefs, Chesterton considered himself to be an Orthodox Christian, a position that he subsequently came to realize was so close to Catholicism that he might as well call himself a Catholic; he did, and he also converted from the High Anglican Church to Catholicism when he saw signs that the Anglicans were becoming less orthodox, and focusing too much on modernizing for his liking. His conversion drew the ire of his friend George Bernard Shaw, who called his friend "an annoying genius" which Chesterton chose to find flattering.
Chesterton was a prolific producer of philosophical writings, but he is still best known for authoring the Father Brown Stories, thanks in large part to the television adaptation by the BBC. He was also a renowned poet and playwright.
