Alan Billings

Canon Dr Alan Billings is a member of the Youth Justice Board and is a retired Anglican priest. Alan Billings is also the director of the Centre for Ethics and Religion at Lancaster University. He contributes regularly to the programme Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4. Active in local government, Alan Billings was a member of the Home Office Community Cohesion Panel. He also serves as a schools adjudicator and is Chair of the Cumbria Courts Board.

Alan Billings was educated at Emmanuel college, Cambridge University and subsequently trained to become a teacher while attending Bristol University. After time spent teaching in Leicester and Barnsley, Alan Billings trained to become a priest and following ordination he served at several churches including St Silas Leicester and St Marys in Sheffield. While in Sheffield he was Deputy Leader of Sheffield City Council and was a contemporary of David Blunkett. At this time in the late 1980s, Sheffield city council was engaged in infamous disputes with Margaret Thatcher. During this period Alan Billings gained a doctorate by carrying out research that ultimately contributed to the controversial anti Thatcherite report: Faith in the City. For a period, Alan Billings was the Principal of the West Midlands Ministerial Training Course, a part-time course for ordinands of the Church of England, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church, based at The Queen's College, Birmingham. Latterly Alan Billings was the vicar of St Georges Kendal in Cumbria, England.

Alan Billings has written several books: Dying and Grieving, Secular Lives Sacred Hearts and God and Community Cohesion