Obituary: Rev Kerr Spiers, popular Baptist minister who contributed to Late Call and Thought For the Day

KERR Speirs was proof that the words “liberal Baptist” do not amount into a contradiction in terms, and that the description “evangelical” does not need to be prefixed by the word “conservative”. He was an outstanding preacher, and occupied two of the Baptist denomination’s most significant pulpits, Hillhead Baptist Church in Glasgow’s West End and Coats Memorial in Paisley.

In the 1980s, when the head of BBC Scotland’s Religious Broadcasting Department commissioned a series of programmes, using many of the country’s finest preachers, in an final attempt to discover whether it could breathe life into flagging broadcast worship, Spiers was a natural choice to be included as a preacher along with Margaret Forrester, Richard Holloway and Professor Bill Shaw.

Kerr Spiers was born in Hamilton, the son of a miner who became a minister. When he decided at the age of 18 to become a minister he went to Rawdon College, the Baptist seminary in Leeds. During his time there the distinguished Old Testament scholar David Russell, who also hailed from Hamilton, became principal.

Spiers’ first appointment was to the Baptist Church in Edinburgh’s Morningside, where he established a reputation as a challenging and provocative preacher.

Never one either to rest on a reputation or to be where Christian faith was comfortable, Spiers left Morningside for the Baptist congregation in Anstruther. He wanted to explore theology further and extend his academic studies and so enrolled to undertake postgraduate studies at St Andrews.

He took a Bachelor of Philosophy degree there and then agreed to become the minister of Hillhead Baptist Church.

His ministry extended far beyond the borders of the Hillhead congregation. He became involved in religious broadcasting, contributing to STV’s Late Call, and to BBC Radio Scotland’s Thought for the Day and the evening programme Prayer Desk.

In Hillhead, his commitment to the social gospel to the poor combined with his sympathy for a great deal of the 1960s and 70s radical theology connected with the movement associated with the radical bishop of Woolwich, John Robinson. It was part of Spiers’ brilliance that he could hold together the conservative elements of his Baptist communion and the searching, probing, iconoclastic spirit of the church at the time. His ministry reached far beyond the traditional Baptist congregation to the deprived, who found their way to the superficial attractiveness of nights in Glasgow’s West End.

Spiers then moved to Paisley’s Coats Memorial Baptist Church. It was there that he persuaded the congregation to oppose the decision of the Baptist Union to refuse to join the recently formed Action of Churches Together in Scotland, an ecumenical body which included, to the Baptists’ displeasure, the Roman Catholic Church.

Spiers had long been a supporter of the ecumenical movement; under his ministry in Paisley, Coats Memorial had welcomed and hosted work by the very progressive Roman Catholic choir, the St Mungo Singers, based then in nearby Dumbreck.

Spiers was not immune to current afairs; in August 1928, Mrs May Donoghue ordered and paid for a ginger beer drink in the Wellmeadow Café near to Coats Memorial Church. The remainder of a snail appeared to be in the drink.

She sued the manufacturer of the ginger drink and, after a lengthy case, the courts ruled in favour of Mrs Donoghue that the shop owner had a duty of care to avoid harm to others.

Spiers held a service to mark the anniversary of the case for Scots Law, and a chance encounter at the service in Coats Memorial Church to mark the anniversary of this judgment led to his being invited to become minister of Yorkminster Park Baptist Church in Toronto.

The present minister there, Rev Dr Peter Holmes, said: “I had the privilege of working as Kerr’s assistant for four years prior to his retirement.

His voice carried the wisdom of a great father and his instincts were always towards faith and compassion.”

When Spiers, who retired in 1999, left one of his congregations, a young woman said to him: “Thank you for believing, even when I couldn’t believe.” He was the sort of minister who always identified with those whose faith was fragile.

In retirement in Glasgow he continued to support children’s holiday schemes, the Aberlour Trust and Amnesty International.

He was also a very welcome and appreciated preacher in Canonmills Baptist Church in Edinburgh, the inspiration of his great friend, the actor Tom Fleming.

Spiers loved football. As an amateur he played in his time with Hawick Royal Albert.

His son Graham, who like his father was a theology graduate of St Andrews, and now a sports journalist, said: “I feel a deep gratitude for his life, and have been an immensely privileged son.”

Kerr Spiers is survived by his wife Betty and two children, Fiona and Graham, and six grandchildren. JOHNSTON MCKAY