Many sociological theories on new religious movements (sects or cults) point out that they create new types of community in response to contemporary social and cultural changes that have had deleterious effects both on the family and on communal relationships. This paper examines three contemporary groups in the United States as religious communities. ISKCON, a Hindu sect, has become a well-structured parish-type community whose members are engaged in different levels of involvement. It maintains its identity not only by its unique religious practices and lifestyle, but also by regional and international meetings. The Aetherius Society, a UFO religion, teaches occult wisdom and encourages its members to participate in many missions whose goals are to further the good of the earth and its inhabitants. Finally, Promise Keepers, the most recent Christian evangelical revival, while allowing its members to keep their denom-national ties, bonds them together by a strong, conservative theology and by means of small group meetings, and local and national rallies. These groups dif Jer in their ideologies, in their religious goals, in their relations to society at large, and in the type of communal relationships they have established. However, they are all characterized by a homogeneity in ideology and religious practice, and by an opposition to the secular ideology that pervades Western culture.