The Hymnal 1982

The Hymnal 1982 is the seventh hymnal the Episcopal Church's General Convention has authorized since 1789, following predecessors approved in 1826, 1871, 1892, 1916 and 1940. That continuity matters more for this denomination than for most, because the Episcopal Church requires that hymn texts sung in worship come from an officially approved source rather than leaving the choice to individual congregations or publishers. The Standing Commission on Church Music, working from decades of preparation by a Joint Commission on Church Music first established in 1919, compiled the 720 hymn collection with Raymond F. Glover serving as general editor, and General Convention approved it in 1982, with printed copies following in 1985.

Its immediate predecessor, The Hymnal 1940, could not simply be reprinted with a few additions, because the Episcopal Church had revised its Book of Common Prayer in 1979, and the new prayer book's expanded liturgical texts needed matching service music and chant sections the older hymnal had never been built to carry. The Hymnal 1982's much larger service music component exists specifically to answer that 1979 prayer book, tying the two books together as companion volumes rather than as separately evolving traditions.

What set The Hymnal 1982 apart from every Episcopal hymnal before it was not primarily its service music, useful as that was, but the deliberate widening of whose musical voice it included. Alongside historic Anglican repertoire stretching back centuries, its editors folded in African American spirituals, a Ghanaian work song, Chinese and Hispanic American hymns and Amerindian compositions, a range no earlier authorized Episcopal hymnal had attempted at this scale. For a denomination that requires hymn texts sung in worship to be officially approved, that decision was not a matter of taste alone: it changed what an Episcopal congregation anywhere in the country was actually permitted to sing on a Sunday morning.

The book's reach has extended beyond the United States that produced it. It remains in active use by the Episcopal Church in the Philippines, among other bodies outside the American church that adopted it as their own working hymnal rather than commissioning something built for their own context. More than four decades after its 1982 approval, it remains the primary hymnal of the Episcopal Church, with no successor yet authorized to replace it, even as the church has since authorized supplementary collections alongside it rather than a full replacement.

Its structure reflects that same widening ambition. Hymns are grouped by rite of passage, entries for Baptism, Eucharist, Marriage and the Burial of the Dead sit beside a general section arranged by theme, headings like Christian Vocation and Pilgrimage or The Church Triumphant, and a closing section of Rounds and Canons and National Songs. A hymnal meant to be sung from at every stage of a member's life needed room broad enough to hold all of that at once.