Luther E. Tyson, 85; applied social activism to mutual fund investing

Luther E. Tyson retired from the ministry in 1986.

The Rev. Dr. Luther E. Tyson was working for the United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C., in 1967 when he received a letter from a woman in Ohio asking whether he knew of any mutual funds that did not invest in companies that provided weapons or supplies for the Vietnam War.

He realized that no such investment options existed, so he decided to create one. Starting with $100,000, he and three cofounders developed one of the world's first mutual funds designed to be socially responsible, the Pax World Fund. And they took the idea a step further; in addition to defense-related industries, the fund does not invest in liquor, tobacco, or gambling industries.

It was an act that typified the way Dr. Tyson's faith motivated his endeavors in business, education, and social activism, his family said.

"He was working under the concept of the social gospel," said Dr. Tyson's son, Jonathan, of Laurel, Md. To Dr. Tyson, "part of having religious belief was putting it in action."

Dr. Tyson, who served as pastor of churches in Needham, Marblehead, and Haverhill, died April 22 of prostate cancer in Palm Coast, Fla. He was 85.

Even in his youth, Dr. Tyson did what he could to help others, said his sister, Ida Tazelaar of Dover, Del. When she and her brother played with the other children in their rural Texas neighborhood, he would make sure no one was left out of the game.

"My brother taught me how to appreciate and love everyone," said Tazelaar, 78. "It wasn't anything he ever said, it was just his life."

Dr. Tyson's father, Joe Mickle Tyson, was a Church of the Nazarene preacher who raised his children to be faithful and compassionate. He instilled in his son a desire to help others, but his religious faith was not a perfect fit. When he was a teenager, Dr. Tyson converted to the United Methodist Church, a denomination better suited to his interests in science and social change.

Dr. Tyson's father supported his son's devotion to finding the set of religious beliefs that fit him best.

Jonathan said that his grandfather believed that "God has plans for you, and that it's a matter of finding out what they are." Dr. Tyson's plan was to implement his religious values for social change.

Dr. Tyson received a bachelor of arts in sacred theology from Boston University School of Theology in 1947 and served his three Massachusetts pastorates from 1949 to 1958. He later completed his doctorate in the sociology of religion and social ethics at BU.

He was executive secretary of the Boston Area Committee on Industrial Relations from 1958 to 1966 and then director of the denomination's Department of Economic Life for the Board of Church and Society in Washington until 1980.

Dr. Tyson retired from the ministry in 1986 to dedicate more time to the Pax Fund, which had grown to more than $31 million just 15 years after its birth in 1971. Today, Pax World Fund manages nearly $2.5 billion in stocks and bonds. Including the eight other mutual funds under Pax, the firm's assets fall just short of $3 billion, said the fund's current chief executive officer, Christopher Brown, the son of one of Dr. Tyson's founding partners, Anthony S. Brown, who also died last month.

For Dr. Tyson, business was a means of expanding the breadth of his social mission, friends said. He had worked as a mediator, settling labor disputes in his parishes' small communities, and then on a larger scale, as executive secretary of the United Methodist Committee on Industrial Relations. Pax allowed him to reach similarly minded people across the nation by providing them with ethically conscious investment options.

"He was a very ethical, high-moral-standards person," Brown said. "He was a tremendous believer in helping everyone."

To reach less fortunate people overseas, Dr. Tyson established the Pax World Service, a program that allowed Pax investors to donate dividends for education, reforestation, and clean water in developing countries. Now called the Global Citizen Program, it allows Pax shareholders to contribute funds to Mercy Corps, an organization that provides food, jobs, and emergency aid to communities in need.

The BU School of Theology will recognize Dr. Tyson's activism in October by naming him a distinguished alumnus for his dedication to social activism through Pax, the ministry, and the university's own dean advisory board, which he joined in 1992, said dean Ray L. Hart.

The School of Theology selects three or four recipients from a pool of about 50 eligible alumni, said Hart, who described Dr. Tyson as one of the school's most distinguished alumni.

"He had a very deep voice, not a booming one, but a resounding one," Hart said. "He didn't talk all the time, but when he did, people listened."

But Dr. Tyson rarely talked about his accomplishments, said his son. "He was kind of tight-lipped about that stuff."

In addition to his son and sister, Dr. Tyson leaves a daughter, Joanna Tyson, and two grandchildren, all of Laurel, Md.

Services are private.