Baldwin’s ‘begin again’ derives from Revelations’ ‘do your first works over.‘

Evidence

In the introduction to The Price of the Ticket, Baldwin formulated his point about beginning again a bit differently. “In the church I come from,” he wrote, “we were counselled, from time to time, to do our first works over.” Here Baldwin invokes Revelations 2:5: “Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.” In the mode of poet-prophet, Baldwin called the nation, in his after times, to confront the lie of its own self-understanding and to get about the work of building a country truly based on democratic principles. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 564

Categorization

• XREF: Etymological root of the reader’s key concept — grounds ‘begin again’ in scripture, defying dismissal of late Baldwin as merely bitter.