Anna Warner and William Bradbury’s Musical Masterpiece

When I attend services at nearby Choonghyeon Presbyterian Church, I usually sit in the balcony where two rows are given over to foreigners. Seventeen-plus years after moving to Korea, I am still learning the rudiments of the language, so a translation earpiece is necessary. The 3:30 p.m. service differs from the earlier ones in that it is shorter and fewer people fill the pews. Furthermore, no translation is provided. As a result, I am on the main floor; the balcony, I believe, is closed off for this afternoon service. I like it, however, with the sunlight coming through the west-side windows.

There I was a couple of weeks ago. The pastor had given a brief sermon which included several references to the Lord Jesus and children. It might have been Mark 10: 13-16 (“Let the little children come unto me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God”) or Matthew 18: 3-4 (“Truly, I tell you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven”). Keep in mind that this was a time when kids were marginalized or viewed as unimportant, so his disciples initially tried to shoo them away. The King of Kings knew better and welcomed them. He had a tender, protective love for children deriving from his divine nature.

Shortly after the sermon came a hymn. The rather grandly named Hallelujah Choir and Orchestra sang and played it, and those of us in the congregation joined in. The song was “Jesus Loves Me,” well remembered from my days as a Sunday schooler in Dallas in the late 1950s and early 1960s. We all sang, most of the others in Korean and me in English. I especially savored the chorus: “Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.”

I took part, fully aware that non-believers would scoff. Let them. I later researched the song and learned that it has critics. They contend that it is sentimental, that it is too “me” oriented and that it fails some other theological standards. Hey, it is a children’s song. And it does obliquely mention Christ’s all-important atonement on Calvary. Those picky, perplexing, pusillanimous people can go jump in a lake for all I care.

The history: Anna Warner (1827–1915), a New York native, wrote several books, poems and “religious” songs for children, often using the pseudonym Amy Lothrop. Warner and her sister Susan (1819–1885; famous for her novel The Wide, Wide World) were devout Christians in the Presbyterian and Methodist denominations who could trace their lineage back to the Puritans. In 1860, big sister, in the process of writing a book entitled Say and Seal, told little sister that it required a poem of comforting words spoken to a dying boy. Glad to cooperate, she did so, and it caught on with the public. William Batchelder Bradbury (1816–1868) wrote the music two years later and added the chorus. To what extent Anna Warner and Bradbury collaborated is not known, but they crafted a beloved hymn that has stood the test of time.

Among the stories that have grown up around this song, I will list three. The first involves the famed Swiss theologian Karl Barth. During a 1962 lecture in the United States, a student asked if he could summarize his Christian views in one sentence. He paused and responded, “Yes, I can. In the words of a song I learned at my mother’s knee: ‘Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.’” Barth, a widely admired Christian scholar, a heavy hitter in his field, captured the gospel’s message quite well.

The second occurred at the height of persecution in Communist China. Mao Zedong had made it one of his goals to eradicate Christianity, although he merely succeeded in driving the church underground. A Christian sent a cryptic message to a friend, and it managed to escape the attention of the censors because it said simply, “The ‘this I know people’ are well.” His seven-word expression made clear that the Christian community in China was far from dead. 

And finally, an anecdote from August 1943, during World War II. The PT-109 boat captained by future president John F. Kennedy had been sunk by a Japanese destroyer in the shark-infested waters around the Solomon Islands. Stranded for several days, Kennedy and his men (the survivors at least, as two had died) were rescued by a couple of natives named Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana. Deeply grateful, one of those Americans, William Johnston, sat looking at a Pacific Ocean sunset with the Solomon Islanders, both of whom had been educated at a Christian mission. Together, they sang a hymn known to all three: “Jesus Loves Me.”