Not long after I met Kelsey Osgood, we sat at a picnic table at the country ice cream store just down the road, she with her individual-sized bag of chips (chosen because of her Orthodox Jewish food requirements), I with my non-kosher cone. We discussed—among other things—Jewish food laws that seemed so stringent as to be ridiculous, like using separate ovens to prepare milk and meat.
But then, I grew up Plain Mennonite and many of my neighbors are Amish, and rules that make sense to us—or at least traceable to some root of reason—may seem nonsensical to others.
Kelsey had traveled to Oakland to spend time with Christina Cortez, a convert to the Amish and one of the subjects of the book Kelsey was working on. I found the premise of the book intriguing: she was writing about the lives of six female converts—to Quakerism, Evangelicalism, Mormonism, Islam, monastic Catholicism, and the Amish—as well as her own life and conversion to Orthodox Judaism.
I thought she seemed especially fitted to write Christina’s story; when we talked about the Amish, she seemed to understand in a deep sort of way why someone might choose this way of living and how these distinct lifestyle choices can hold a community together. The Amish have many similarities to the Orthodox Jews, she told me.
Perhaps people like Kelsey and the converts she was writing about have a special appreciation for routines, rules, and habits aimed at keeping the faith. “The height of our fences is, in many ways, justified,” she says in her book, which came out in 2025 and is titled Godstruck: Seven Women’s Unexpected Journeys to Religious Conversion.
Godstruck features seven women who stepped into lives the mainstream world might view as backward, into worlds overly stringent, patriarchal, or otherwise oppressive. And yet these women chose willingly. They find fulfillment, a sense of well-being, and even a sense of freedom within their respective religions. It must be added that though the book tells each woman’s story, its focus is primarily on Kelsey’s own story and how aspects of her journey and chosen religion compare to or intersect with the others.
Her book offers a wide-ranging look at various subjects and schools of thought that relate to religion. It raises a host of intriguing questions: What has the modern world lost by disenchantment? Might a Sabbath rest be actually what our work-entertainment-connection-crazed world needs? Why is the old fashioned more of sexual purity experiencing a comeback among some non-religious individuals? Why is prayer and meditation so alluring, and why is it that the modern version of “mcmindfulness” cannot replicate the full religious experience? Why might a woman or a religion choose a head covering? And how does it feel to be a convert—always a little bit different, a little less settled, a little more aware than your born-in-religion counterparts?
The book manages to be rigorous and academic while at the same time evocative and lyrical, blending stellar journalism with deep personal reflection.
I was truly fascinated by the discussion. And I sensed in Kelsey’s personal reflections many of the yearnings and tendencies of my own heart. Raised in a secular environment, she nevertheless experienced the God hunger so integral to my being. Seeking God, she nevertheless experiences the stifling blindness of intellect so familiar to my mind. We want to know God, Kelsey and I, but knowing does not come naturally.
We choose to lean into belief.
In Godstruck, Kelsey discusses belief as a product of choice and action. She quotes T.M. Luhrmann: “Of course, one might say, they believe, and so they build cathedrals. I am asking what we might learn if we shift our focus: if rather than presuming that people worship because they believe, we ask instead whether people believe because they worship.”
My own choices to pray or read the Word often feel halfhearted, superficial, and utterly boring. But I slog on because moments of transcendence are also there. God is closer when I reach for him. And without God, without the absolute values and bedrock truths of my Christian faith, I would empty and fizzle. Life would be a wasteland…no solid mossy trees on which to anchor, no compass, no North star.
Because Kelsey is a ger, or stranger in the Jewish faith, perhaps she is more than usually grateful for her place there. In another of her pieces—an article about Amish converts published in the Atlas Obscura—she includes herself with them and writes: “Though we’ll stumble over the wordings of our invocations sometimes, we’ll make up for it in the love we feel for our little worlds, and in the ways in which, as perennial outsiders, we can proclaim their worth with a special sort of authority.”
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This response to Godstruck was first published in Anabaptist World. It would make a great addition to your winter reading library! I have the hardcover, available on Amazon and currently almost 50% with the included coupon (good until October 27). I also have the audiobook version, which I enjoyed very much because it is read by the author and I can picture her saying it in just that way. :)