Much has been made in the month since the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life survey found that up to 44 percent of Americans have at some point switched religious or denominational affiliations. I myself read about it in The New York Times.

The “much” that has been made has included much hand-wringing. But to be perfectly honest, I would have been much more surprised if the Pew Forum had reported the opposite, that changes in religious affiliation had declined. We in America—where the religious landscape has been shaped by two (or more, depending on who’s counting) “Great Awakenings”—we invented “church shopping.” And as cultural values of individualism and mobility combine with global immigration and vast technological changes, why wouldn’t our religious practices follow suit? Our religious loyalties have shrunk in direct proportion to the shrinking of our world. Or, to put it another way, our religious curiosity has multiplied in direct proportion to our society’s religious diversification.

In one of his regular “Sightings” e-columns, the eminent Martin Marty reminds us that this isn’t a new trend: “Centuries ago, evangelists in staid New England lured established Congregationalists into becoming ecstatic Baptists; advertising, luring, and changing has long gone on since.”

Of course, I am speaking as one who is not part of the “44.” I have lived, struggled with, and thrived in the same religious denomination of my birth, childhood, and adulthood.

Would someone ask me why, I would probably paraphrase the same Martin Marty, from a few decades ago when he “stayed” in the same denomination as mine (The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod):

“It’s home. It’s a family. Being Christian is a vital way for me to be human. Being Lutheran is a vital way for me to be a Christian. Being in the Missouri Synod is a vital way for me to be a Lutheran.”

Theology aside, religion is often about finding “home.” Often, it’s as simple as that . . .

. . . and as complex. Because circumstances change. Which is what happened to Marty a few years after he expressed those sentiments. And he left.

Because finding “home” isn’t always as easy as it sounds.