Reflection on PAAM Convocation (2 Kings 22–23) (June 26, 2026)
Reflection on PAAM Convocation
Finding the Book Again: Whose Restoration?
Scripture: 2 Kings 22–23
Date: June 26, 2026
(A Postcolonial Queer Taiwanese Reflection on Josiah’s
Reform)
Introduction — We Love Stories of Restoration
If this is your first time attending PAAM Convocation, like
me, please raise your hand!
I am told that the next Convocation will be in Chicago. If
you still want to attend the next Convocation in Chicago, please raise your
hand!
Our Coordinator, Mitchi, write down their names!
Brothers, sisters, and siblings in Christ,
Good evening.
I am honored to share the reflection tonight. Thank you,
Rev. Ernie, for having me.
There are few stories in Scripture more inspiring than the
rediscovery of God’s Word.
A forgotten scroll is found inside the Temple.
The king tears his clothes.
The nation repents.
Idols are destroyed.
The covenant is renewed.
What a beautiful revival story.
Many churches preach Josiah as a model for spiritual
renewal:
“Return to the Bible.”
“Restore true worship.”
“Remove false idols.”
These are not wrong.
But today I want to ask another question.
Who wrote this story?
And perhaps more importantly,
Who disappears because of this story?
Sometimes restoration can become another form of conquest.
Sometimes “returning to God” also means forcing everyone
else to return to one political center.
As a student of the Bible and sacred texts, the Bible and
sacred texts invite us not only to celebrate restoration, but also to discern
its cost.
The World Behind the Story
Josiah became king around 640 BCE.
It was an extraordinary political moment.
The Assyrian Empire—the superpower that had dominated the
region for over a century—was collapsing.
Northern Israel had already disappeared.
Babylon had not yet become dominant.
For perhaps one generation, Judah experienced something it
had not known for decades:
Freedom.
This created opportunity.
Josiah was not simply leading a religious revival.
He was rebuilding a nation.
Many scholars believe the “Book of the Law” discovered in
the Temple was an early edition of Deuteronomy.
Whether literally discovered or newly composed, the text
became the theological foundation for national reform.
The Deuteronomistic historians were not merely preserving
memories.
They were interpreting history.
Their central conviction was simple:
If Israel obeys the covenant, the nation lives.
If Israel rejects the covenant, the nation falls.
History becomes theology.
Archaeology and Historical Reality
Yet archaeology paints a more complicated picture.
Places like Arad, Beersheba, and Lachish show evidence that
many local shrines existed long before Josiah.
Religion in ancient Judah was not uniform.
Families worshiped locally.
Villages maintained their own traditions.
Some inscriptions even mention “YHWH and his Asherah.”
The archaeological record suggests that the religious life
of ordinary people was far more diverse than the biblical narrative allows.
When Josiah destroyed the high places, he certainly removed
idolatry according to Deuteronomy.
But he also dismantled local religious identities.
The story of reform was also a story of centralization.
The Samarian Temple of the Northern Kingdom was not counted
as a house of YHWH anymore.
Jerusalem became the only legitimate center.
One Temple.
One king.
One interpretation.
One authorized memory.
The Political Theology of the Deuteronomistic Historians
This is where the “brilliance” of the Deuteronomistic
History appears.
The authors were not writing neutral history.
They were writing national theology.
The northern kingdom disappears.
Regional memories disappear.
Alternative priesthoods disappear.
The House of David becomes the only legitimate dynasty.
Jerusalem becomes the only holy place.
Even Moses now points toward Jerusalem.
The rediscovered Torah legitimizes Davidic kingship.
This is “brilliant” theological writing.
It also serves a political agenda.
The question is not whether Josiah was faithful.
The question is:
Faithful for whom?
Internal Colonization
We often recognize colonialism when foreign empires invade.
Assyria.
Babylon.
Persia, if we count.
Rome, in the time of New Testament.
But there is another kind of colonialism.
Sometimes a nation colonizes itself.
Jerusalem begins defining the faith of villages it has never
truly listened to.
The capital tells the margins:
Your worship is no longer legitimate.
Your memories no longer matter.
Your traditions are now called corruption.
This is what scholars today sometimes call internal
colonization.
The center creates unity by erasing diversity.
The irony is painful.
A nation that survived imperial oppression begins
reproducing imperial logic within its own borders.
Reading from Taiwan
As a Taiwanese Christian, this story feels strangely
familiar.
Taiwan has lived under many rulers.
Dutch.
Spanish.
Qing.
Japanese.
The Nationalist government.
My dear friend, Qaisul, can tell you more about how Han
Taiwanese people colonize indigenous Taiwanese people.
Global superpowers continue to compete over Taiwan today,
such as China and the US.
Every regime claimed to restore order.
Every regime claimed to represent authentic civilization.
Every regime rewrote history.
Every regime produced new textbooks.
Every regime decided whose memories should survive.
The question is never simply:
“What is truth?”
The question is also:
“Who has the power to define truth?”
The rediscovered book in Josiah’s Temple reminds us that
sacred texts are never interpreted outside politics.
Reading from Queer Communities
Queer Christians know this story too.
Many of us have heard people say,
“The Bible clearly says…” prah, prah, prah…
The sentence sounds familiar.
So did Josiah.
So did the Deuteronomistic historians.
So did many religious authorities throughout history.
Sometimes rediscovering Scripture becomes rediscovering
control.
Scripture becomes a tool that determines who belongs and who
must leave.
The tragedy is not that people love Scripture.
The tragedy is when only one reading is permitted.
When restoration means silencing those already living on the
margins.
Reading within Asian American and Pacific Islander
Communities
Our AAPI churches carry similar tensions.
We celebrate preserving language.
Preserving traditions.
Preserving identity.
These are holy gifts.
But we also ask difficult questions.
Which Asian stories become “authentic”?
Whose accents are welcomed?
Whose cultures become invisible?
Who gets called “real Asians”?
Pacific Islanders.
South Asians.
Mixed-race families.
Queer youth.
Undocumented immigrants.
Adoptees.
Second-generation children.
Too often, they hear that they do not quite fit.
Sometimes our communities unintentionally build Jerusalems
of our own.
We create one authorized culture.
One authorized language.
One authorized memory.
We may not intend to exclude.
But exclusion still happens.
Ironically, I am not talking about White Christian
Nationalism here.
The Blind Spots
The Deuteronomistic historians leave us remarkable theology.
Yet they also leave us difficult questions.
Who spoke for the women whose household shrines were
destroyed?
Who listened to rural priests who lost their vocation?
Who preserved northern memories?
Who recorded Indigenous traditions that existed before
Israel arrived?
Who wrote the stories of people outside Jerusalem?
Perhaps the greatest blind spot is believing that God’s work
can only happen through one center.
A Different Restoration
Yet the Gospel does not abandon restoration.
Jesus also restores.
But notice how.
He restores lepers.
He restores women.
He restores tax collectors.
He restores Gentiles.
He restores those whom official religion often overlooked.
The kingdom of God does not erase difference.
It gathers difference around one table.
Pentecost does not create one language.
The Holy Spirit speaks every language.
Perhaps God’s restoration is not uniformity.
Perhaps God’s restoration is communion without erasure.
From My Observations of the Convocation in the Past Two
Days
As I have participated in the Convocation over the past two
days, I have found myself listening to the presentations, workshops, youth
reflections, and panel discussions through the lens of King Josiah. The
official theme of this gathering is the “Josiah Generation.” Naturally, I began
asking myself: What kind of Josiah are we imagining?
At first, I assumed we would simply celebrate Josiah as the
young king who rediscovered the Book of the Law and courageously removed idols.
But as I listened more carefully, I realized that the Spirit was leading our
conversations in directions even richer than the biblical narrative itself.
Again and again, I heard people say that our goal is not
merely to increase Sunday worship attendance. Instead, we are called to foster
authentic community. We talked about intentionally creating welcoming spaces,
even reimagining church buildings as spiritual or community centers rather than
simply places where worship happens once a week. We discussed using our
properties more faithfully—not only the buildings themselves, but also the
gifts, skills, stories, and relationships of the people God has entrusted to
us.
That language caught my attention.
The Deuteronomistic History places enormous emphasis on one
sacred place—Jerusalem. Yet throughout this Convocation, I heard us asking a
different question:
How can every place become a place where people
experience belonging?
That is not merely a question about buildings. It is a
question about ecclesiology. What makes a church faithful is not simply where
people worship, but whether people truly belong.
I also noticed that our conversations consistently moved
beyond programs toward relationships. We spoke about intergenerational
friendships, reconnecting with heritage, creating spaces where young adults and
elders could learn from one another, and building communities where people feel
genuinely welcomed rather than merely invited.
One of the youth reflections particularly stayed with me.
They spoke about finding connections under one tent, discovering new
friendships across cultures, wrestling with heritage preservation while
navigating multiple identities, and finding a place where they could move from
feeling disconnected to becoming reconnected.
That language reminded me of Pentecost more than Jerusalem.
Pentecost did not erase differences. It allowed every
language to proclaim God’s mighty works. Unity came through the Spirit, not
through uniformity.
Several speakers encouraged us to rediscover the unique
gifts of AAPI churches. We acknowledged that many of our congregations have
inherited European theological frameworks and church practices, often without
realizing how much of our own cultural wisdom has been set aside. We asked
whether we have surrendered too many cultural expressions in order to fit
someone else’s understanding of what church should look like.
Those comments deeply resonated with me as a Taiwanese queer
Christian, born and raised in a Buddhist family.
Every culture asks what should be preserved. But every act
of preservation also raises another question:
Whose culture is being preserved?
Taiwan’s history teaches us that every colonial regime
claimed to be restoring civilization, restoring order, restoring the “true”
identity of the people. Yet each regime also rewrote memory, silenced other
voices, and defined authenticity according to its own political agenda.
As I listened to our conversations about preserving
heritage, I found myself wondering whether the church also needs to ask these
questions with humility.
Whose stories have we unintentionally forgotten?
Whose voices remain absent?
Who still struggles to feel fully at home among us?
One phrase from the panel discussion has continued to echo
in my heart:
“The community put that kid there.”
We were talking about Josiah becoming king at only eight
years old.
The biblical story often celebrates Josiah himself.
But our conversation reminded me that no eight-year-old
becomes a faithful leader alone.
Someone raised him.
Someone protected him.
Someone taught him.
Someone trusted him.
Perhaps the real miracle is not simply that Josiah
rediscovered the Book of the Law.
Perhaps the greater miracle is that an entire community
nurtured someone capable of hearing God’s Word.
That observation reshaped how I understood the phrase
“Josiah Generation.”
Perhaps a Josiah Generation is not a generation waiting for
heroic young leaders to save the church.
Perhaps a Josiah Generation is a community willing to
cultivate environments where every generation can hear God’s voice together.
Throughout the Convocation, we repeatedly returned to themes
of hospitality, authenticity, courage, mission, and belonging. We spoke about
partnerships with Indigenous communities. We reflected on Asian American
histories such as the Chinese Exclusion Act and Japanese American
incarceration. We visited Tanaka Farms and heard how stories of immigration,
discrimination, resilience, and responsible stewardship continue to shape our
understanding of vocation today.
These conversations remind us that covenant is never only
about worship.
It is also about memory.
Justice.
Land.
Community.
Hospitality.
And how we love our neighbors.
Yet as I reflected on all these beautiful conversations, I
also became aware of several questions that remain before us.
The biblical Josiah centralized worship in Jerusalem.
Our Convocation celebrated many cultures.
The biblical Josiah eliminated alternative sacred spaces.
Our Convocation celebrated diversity of traditions and
experiences.
The biblical narrative focuses on one extraordinary king.
Our conversations repeatedly emphasized communities that
raise leaders rather than heroes who rescue communities.
In many ways, our lived experience during these days has
already begun moving beyond the limitations of Josiah’s story.
As someone who reads Scripture through the experiences of
Taiwan, through postcolonial history, and through the voices of queer
Christians, I cannot help but ask another question.
If Josiah asks us what idols must be torn down,
perhaps our communities must also ask:
What assumptions should be torn down?
What forms of colonial theology still shape our imagination?
What cultural hierarchies have we accepted without noticing?
Whose stories remain unheard because they do not fit our
inherited narratives?
Perhaps today’s “high places” are not only capitalism or
secularism.
Perhaps they also include racism, colonial assumptions,
cultural superiority, heteronormativity, language hierarchies, institutional
self-preservation, and the temptation to believe that only one way of being
church can faithfully represent God.
If that is true, then the Josiah Generation God is calling
forth today will need more than courage.
It will need humility.
It will need communities that listen before they lead.
It will need churches willing not only to rediscover
Scripture, but also to rediscover the people whose stories have too often
remained outside our official histories.
For only then can restoration become more than returning to
an idealized past.
Only then can restoration become the work of the Holy
Spirit, who gathers many peoples, many languages, many cultures, and many
stories into one body without requiring any of them to disappear.
Perhaps that is where the Deuteronomistic History and the Gospel begin to diverge. Josiah’s reform sought covenant renewal by concentrating worship in one center. The Holy Spirit at Pentecost renewed God’s people not by reducing diversity, but by sanctifying it. The challenge before the AAPI church is therefore not whether we will become a Josiah Generation, but what kind of Josiah Generation we will become: one that repeats the politics of centralization, or one that rediscovers covenant while making room for those whose voices have too often been left outside the story.
Conclusion
Perhaps today we need to rediscover another book.
Not because the old book failed.
But because we have forgotten how to read it with humility.
The rediscovered Torah transformed Judah.
But Jesus reminds us that every reading of Scripture must
finally be judged by love.
When restoration requires someone else’s disappearance,
we should ask whether we are rebuilding God’s kingdom,
or merely another Jerusalem of our own making.
May the Holy Spirit continue to open the Scriptures, to us,
deeper and deeper,
and also open our ears,
so that those whose stories were never written
may finally be heard.
I have a high hope that we will do the work.
Amen.
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