Alan Billings

Alan Billings was the Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire 2010‒24. He has degrees from Cambridge and Leicester universities and a doctorate from the New York Theological Seminary and was also at various times a parish priest in Sheffield; Vice Principal of Ripon College, Cuddesdon, Oxford; Principal of the West Midlands Ministerial Training Course and Acting Principal of the Queen’s College, Birmingham; and Director of the Centre for Ethics and Religion, Lancaster University. He is a former Deputy Leader of Sheffield City Council and a board member of the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales and the England Committee of the Big Lottery Fund. He is a former contributor to Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4 and the author of a number of books, including Secular Lives, Sacred Hearts: The Role of the Church in a Time of No Religion (London: SPCK, 2004); God and Community Cohesion: Help or Hindrance? (London: SPCK, 2009); and Lost Church: Why We Must Find It Again (London: SPCK, 2013).