The Metanexus Network began as a global constellation of interdisciplinary communities exploring foundational questions at the intersection of science and spirituality. Growing out of the Local Societies Initiative and later the Metanexus Global Network Initiative, these groups brought together scientists, philosophers, theologians, and scholars to engage questions of meaning, personhood, consciousness, and human purpose beyond the limits of any single discipline.
The original Network focused on two core commitments: dialogue between scientific and spiritual traditions, and transdisciplinary inquiry into the assumptions shaping human understanding. These communities served as spaces for rigorous conversation, intellectual experimentation, and resistance to fragmentation driven by excessive specialization.
Today, Metanexus carries this legacy forward while expanding its scope. As cultural, technological, and existential pressures reshape what it means to be human, the Network is evolving into a broader ecology of communities exploring new ways of being human. Building on its foundational roots, the renewed Network emphasizes lived inquiry, experimentation, and creative engagement with emerging forms of knowledge, practice, and community.
The Metanexus Network is no longer only a site of dialogue, but a space for shared exploration—where inherited questions meet present realities, and new possibilities are allowed to take shape.
Metanexus Groups
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The Nexus of Science and Spirit: Dialogues in Context
Shepherd University Shepherdstown, West Virginia An interdisciplinary group comes together from a broad base of interest in relation to religion, spirituality, and philosophy among Shepherd faculty, bringing discussions to bear on seminal thinkers in religion, science, and philosophy and reaching out to local libraries, churches and religious institutions, and colleagues from universities in the greater
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The Polkinghorne Society
Eastern Nazarene College The Historical Society Quincy, Massachusetts A faculty based initiative; the Polkinghorne Society includes membership from Eastern Nazarene University, Boston University, Gordon College, and Harvard University. A variety of disciplines are represented in the initial core membership including theology, astronomy, physics, history, chemistry, English, religious studies, education, and biology. The society sponsors programs
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The Purdue Faith Communities’ Society for Science and Religion Dialogue
St. Thomas Aquinas Center and the Aquinas Educational Foundation Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana The intent behind this society is to create an ongoing dialogue among six groups with six distinct community-driven themes, growing to fifteen groups with fifteen themes, bringing together a cross-section of Purdue professors, students, clergy, and local laity. Dedicated to substantive