The question of a defining ““new religion”” begins with a survey of a large number of groups that have been labeled as cults in the popular and scholarly literature. Attempts to locate any shared characteristics——beliefs, practices, or attributes——have failed. Thus it is suggested that what new religions share is a common deficiency that pushes them into contested space at the fringes of society. New religions are assigned their fringe status by the more established and dominant religious culture, and by various voices within the secular culture (government officials, watchdog groups, the media, etc.). New religious movements disagree significantly with the dominant accepted religious beliefs/practices in any given cultural setting and/or engage in one or more of a range of activities unacceptable to religious and/or secular authorities, such as violence, illegal behavior, high pressure proselytism, unconventional sexual contacts, or minority medical practices.

The historic decline of submersed aquatic vegetation (SAV) in mesohaline regions of Chesapeake Bay, United States involved a diversity of plant species. The recent modest recovery is mostly, however, associated with a single, prolific but ephemeral species, Ruppia maritima. Two previously abundant and more stable species, Potamogeton perfoliatus and Stuckenia pectinata, have shown virtually no evidence of recovery. Based on previous studies that demonstrated the ability of R. maritima stands to enhance water clarity and nutrient conditions for SAV growth, we hypothesized that these beds would serve as effective "nursery" areas to incite transplant success for other SAV. We conducted experiments in a two-phase study at small and large spatial scales designed to explore this "nursery effect" as a restoration approach to increase plant species diversity. The first phase was conducted at small spatial scales to test effects of patch density by planting P. perfoliatus and S. pectinata into bare, sparse, and densely vegetated areas within three similar R. maritima beds in a tributary of Chesapeake Bay. Mean seasonal percent survivorship and shoot density were significantly higher in bare patches compared to vegetated patches. In the second phase of the study, P. perfoliatus was transplanted into separate R. maritima beds of different densities to test the effect of bed scale plant density on P. perfoliatus survival and growth. Transplant success of P. perfoliatus was positively correlated with the density of R. maritima among all sites.

Two decades of intensive study of nonconventional religion in North America has provided a large data base to examine some of the basic ideas about the new religious movements that have become so prominent in the last generation. Common ideas about the ephemeral nature, lack of historical context, and the role of charismatic leaders, derived from studies of rather small samples of new religions, are challenged in this article by a study of 836 new religions that have operated in North America this century. They are best viewed not as marginal cultural phenomena, that is, as cults, but as products of the massive diffusion of the world's religions globally. The number of new and nonconventional religions has grown steadily since the passing of new immigration laws in 1965 and will continue to grow in the light of even higher quotas for Asian and Middle Eastern immigrants passed in 1990.

No abstract

No abstract