HIU Community Mourns the Passing of Former Professor Clifford J. Green

The HIU community was saddened to learn of the passing in April of former professor Clifford J. Green, an internationally known scholar of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was 91.

Dr. Green was Professor of Theology at Hartford Seminary from 1981 until the late 1990s. During most of that time, he was the founding President of the International Bonhoeffer Society, English Language Section, and then served as Executive Director of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English Edition, a 17-volume publication to which Dr. Lisa Dahill contributed as a translator.

Born in Sydney, Australia, Dr. Green studied there before moving to the U.S. for his doctorate at Union Theological Seminary. Ordained as a Lutheran minister, he taught at Wellesley College and Goucher College before coming to Hartford Seminary.

A tribute by the Bonhoeffer Society said, "Clifford devoted several decades to ensuring that the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works translation project was well-funded, well-directed, and of the highest academic standard."

The tribute continued, "In addition to numerous articles and book chapters, Clifford’s seminal work, Bonhoeffer: A Theology of Sociality (1999) broke new ground in interpreting Bonhoeffer’s theological writings through the lens of theological anthropology, yielding new insights to works such as Act and Being and the late prison writings. His other books include Karl Barth: Theologian of Freedom (1989) and Church, Cities, and Human Community: Urban Ministry in the United States (1996)."

In 2014, Dr. Green received an honorary degree from the University of Aberdeen to recognize his "lifelong services to Bonhoeffer studies."