While we’re talking of things inaugural, I found this interesting from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: the religious affiliations of all 44 presidents of the United States.

The list is dominated by Protestants, and of those, Episcopalians and Presbyterians claim the highest numbers. President Obama is listed as a member of the United Church of Christ, but, as we all know, he’s actually currently in between churches.

So, we could put him on a list that includes a whole lot of us, religiously affiliated or not: seeker.

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…