[fipar]

Absolutely!

I went to church as a kid and know what you mean. However, the shared belief usually implies a narrower heterogeneity, if that makes sense (in a way that’s proportional to how orthodox the beliefs are).

In a secular shared space it’s far more common to be exposed to people with radically different beliefs, sexual orientation (or even preferences), and political views, to mention a few examples.

I think it’s very important that people have places where they can be surrounded by others that, while different as you say, all share a very important core belief, but it’s also very important for a healthy society to have spaces where radically different people can coexist peacefully and even work towards some goal together (e.g., a “repair” meetup where people go get something fixed or help others fix things).

[graemep]

> sexual orientation (or even preferences), and political views,

In the churches I have been to over the years (all Catholic or Anglican) I have met people with different sexual orientations and a very wide range of political views (everything except far right, as far left as outright communist).

> I think it’s very important that people have places where they can be surrounded by others that, while different as you say, all share a very important core belief, but it’s also very important for a healthy society to have spaces where radically different people can coexist peacefully and even work towards some goal together

I agree. It does happen at work anyway though so I put less importance on this as a requirement for third spaces.

[fipar]

>In the churches I have been to over the years (all Catholic or Anglican) I have met people with different sexual orientations and a very wide range of political views (everything except far right, as far left as outright communist).

Yeah, it was similar for me (only Catholic churches in my case), though politics were usually homogeneous per church (what I mean is: whether you leaned left or right, you'd find a Catholic community to welcome you, but I'm not sure it'd be easy to find one that would comfortably welcome wide political views). As for sexual orientation, this was not common at all, but bear in mind the last time I attended Church was in the early 90s so things may have changed.

> I agree. It does happen at work anyway though so I put less importance on this as a requirement for third spaces.

I think the main difference of a third space vs work is that, at work, we're forced to "put up" with people we wouldn't normally engage with, because we all have the common goal of making a living, while in a third space, even in one with a common goal like the repair meetups I mentioned, you go there voluntarily and not because otherwise you can't put food on the table.

[graemep]

I think both will vary wildly. I also think my experience in the UK and Sri Lanka is very different from, say, the US.

Catholic churches, politically, pretty similar to the rest of society where the church was, with a left wing tilt.

Sexual orientation also varies with church. Obviously a gay friendly church (e.g. St Patrick's Soho a few decades ago, Farm Street now - both in Catholic London). For Anglican churches I would say St martin in the Fields where David Monteith ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Monteith ) was one of our parish priests.

> I think the main difference of a third space vs work is that, at work, we're forced to "put up" with people we wouldn't normally engage with, because we all have the common goal of making a living

I agree, but by putting up with people you can come to like them, particularly if you are avoiding people because of things such as a stereotyped view of a group.