Freemasonry as the Third Place

by Roger VanGorden, 33˚, Active for Indiana

“Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got. Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot.”

Those opening lines from the Cheers theme song, written by Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo, are more than quaint nostalgia. They are sociological. They capture something timeless. The human need for a third place. A space that isn’t home or work. “Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came.”

Once, these spaces were everywhere. You could walk into a bar, a barbershop, or a diner and feel known. Not for your job or your status, but simply for being you. Over time, those places thinned out. The front porch was replaced by a privacy fence. The lunch counter became a drive-thru. The neighborhood hangout became a smartphone screen.

But one place remains: Freemasonry.

Sociologist Ray Oldenburg called these settings “third places,” informal, accessible spaces that anchor community life. They foster conversation, comfort, and connection. Barbershops, front porches, and weekly bridge nights once filled that role. Today, many have vanished. But Freemasonry still offers one.

Freemasonry is, by every essential measure, a third place. It is neutral ground. Brothers meet on the level.

Men of every background are received equally and treated with dignity. Hierarchy exists, but only to provide structure and order. In a Masonic Lodge, the Worshipful Master presides not over subordinates but over peers.

Freemasonry is accessible. Membership is not limited by wealth, profession, or creed. A man of good character must simply ask. Once inside, he finds a tradition of fraternity. He finds Brothers. Appendant bodies offer similar spaces for wives, partners, and children. This is not exclusion. It is expansion.

Critics may still see exclusion, by gender or structure, as elitism in disguise. But Freemasonry’s openness lies in shared values. It does not lie in universal admission. It is selective only in the way that virtue always is: by requiring men to become more than they were when they entered.

Sociologist Ray Oldenburg called these settings “third places,” informal, accessible spaces that anchor community life.

Oldenburg defined third places as informal, welcoming, familiar, and rooted in conversation. Freemasonry fulfills all of these because of its traditions. It does so not in spite of them. The ritual is the familiarity. The meal is the welcome. The conversation is the connection. Unlike a bar or café, Freemasonry is not casual. It is intentional. And that purpose is its power. Freemasonry offers meaning through intentional connection.

Some may argue the formality of Masonic meetings disqualifies it as a true third place. But it’s that very structure, the ritual and shared experience, that draws men in. It doesn’t hinder connection. It deepens it. Freemasonry isn’t an escape from life. It is where men engage it with purpose. Freemasonry teaches us to become wiser, better, and consequently happier. That happiness isn’t incidental to formality. It is formed by it. One of the missions of Freemasonry, after all, is to communicate happiness.

The meal is the welcome. The conversation is the connection.

Some also point to gender as a limitation. Yet this misses the point entirely. Women often build community through conversational, relationshipcentered gatherings such as book clubs, PTA meetings, or fitness classes. Men, by contrast, tend to connect through shared activity and structured routine, weekly basketball games, morning gym meetups, or regular tee times at the golf course. Freemasonry meets a distinct need in how men bond, grow, and lead.

That doesn’t diminish its value. It defines its purpose.

Freemasonry is also fun. That’s easy to forget when explaining its deeper values. But it matters. The laughter at the meal, the inside jokes over cigars, the way stories from decades past still get told with a grin. These aren’t distractions from the work. They are signs the work is working as intended. Joy is not a side effect. It’s part of the structure. There’s the fun in taking an office, participating in a degree, talking in the parking lot after meetings, helping at a community pancake breakfast, riding in the town parade, or just working together on a shared project. These moments aren’t entertainment. They’re enrichment.

Freemasonry meets a distinct need in how men bond, grow, and lead.

Freemasonry does not need reinvention. It needs to be rightly understood. We need only to recognize what we already are. Freemasonry is a realized third place. Once understood in that light, its relevance becomes obvious. Then it becomes urgent.

In a world fractured by speed and noise, Freemasonry is purposely slow and steady. In a society pulled apart by screens and feeds, Freemasonry is faceto-face. It is one of the last places where men gather not to be entertained or sold to. They gather to be made better.

So maybe, in the end, a man really needs a place where everybody knows his name. And they’re always glad he came.