<\/p>\n
One evangelist from Florida is hoping to pick up where the Puritans left off in New England.<\/p>\n
Tommie Zito, an itinerant preacher who spends much of the year traveling internationally, has reportedly inked a deal with whiskey maven Raj Bhakta, who\u00a0told CBN News in March\u00a0he wanted to give away a $200 million college campus in Poultney, Vermont.<\/p>\n
The founder of WhistlePig Whiskey had only one catch for his eyebrow-raising offer: the recipient of the sprawling campus \u2014\u00a0former home to the Methodist-affiliated Green Mountain College \u2014\u00a0needed to be a Christian who shared Bhakta\u2019s view that biblical principles are vital to America\u2019s flourishing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we forget that there is a God above us who gives us the rules, we don\u2019t make them \u2014 forgetting that is what has caused this crazy culture to emerge of hopelessness, and selfishness, and crazy ideas,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Zito hopes to turn the campus, a 26-building property with dorms, classrooms, athletic facilities, and more than 100 acres of farmland, into a \u201cChrist-centered university\u201d he\u2019s planning to name \u201cZ University,\u201d\u00a0according to the New York Post.<\/p>\n
The Pentecostal preacher shared this video promoting the burgeoning project:<\/p>\n
Zito plans for the Vermont campus to be the first of many faith-based educational hubs with additional campuses in Canada, Italy, Dubai, Poland, and Sri Lanka. Ultimately, he told the Post, he wants to add schools in Japan, Ireland, and the U.K., too.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure it probably wasn\u2019t their first choice to have a Christian university take over this beautiful campus,\u201d Zito said of the local residents in Poultney, a town of roughly 3,000 people, according to census data from 2020. \u201cVermont and New England are not pro-church, let\u2019s just say. We want them to know that I\u2019m coming in here \u2014 we\u2019re coming in here \u2014 to serve.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Bhakta, he purchased the 115-acre property at auction for $4.5 million in 2020, following the Methodist school\u2019s closure the year before.<\/p>\n
While the whiskey mogul initially planned to give the property away, Zito said he \u201cpurchased it for a legit price,\u201d but said Bhakta gave him a \u201cfair\u201d deal. Both Zito and Bhakta agreed not to disclose the purchase price at this time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a historic college and all we\u2019re doing is taking it back, rebirthing it back, to its roots,\u201d Zito said of his plans for the campus. \u201cUltimately, it\u2019s going to be a blessing for Poultney, I really believe, and for the region.\u201d<\/p>\n
Calling the forthcoming college \u201can economic blessing,\u201d he explained, \u201cIt\u2019s going to bring life back \u2014 and not that there\u2019s not life there right now, but there\u2019s \u2026 definitely some areas around that, you know, could use some revitalization,\u201d noting the school will offer education from \u201ca Christ-centered, biblical worldview.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eventually, he wants Z University to function as a liberal arts college, offering training in evangelism, leadership, business, government, communication, and digital media that will be \u201cheavy on the digital side \u2026 with AI.\u201d<\/p>\n
The minister said he plans for tuition to be comparable in price to other Christian colleges, like Grand Canyon University, which has a base tuition of $16,500 per year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t do things to make money on it,\u201d he told the Post. \u201cWe\u2019re going to make it as affordable as we can. And that will depend on donor base, endowment, and all of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, when asked how he\u2019d define success for the Vermont property, Bhakta told CBN News \u201crevival\u201d is his goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can plant a flag and bring a light to this place with an understanding of reorienting ourselves around God, family, and country, we can find purpose and bring the light, which was actually the motto of this campus when it began as a Methodist institution over 200 years ago,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The slogan Bhakta was referring to was Green Mountain College\u2019s motto, Lux Fiat, which, in English, means \u201cLet There Be Light.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bringing faith-based education to New England is far from a new idea \u2014 despite its now-post-Christian culture.<\/p>\n
Ahead of America\u2019s founding, the Puritan settlers in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Connecticut Colony, respectively, founded Harvard in 1636 and Yale in 1701 with the intention of educating the next generation of religious leaders in the region.<\/p>\n
Z University \u2014\u00a0if it comes to pass \u2014\u00a0would mark a return of religious training to upper New England.<\/p>\n
As the number of voices facing big-tech censorship continues to grow, please sign up for\u00a0Faithwire\u2019s daily newsletter\u00a0and download the\u00a0CBN News app, developed by our parent establishment, to stay up-to-date with the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One evangelist from Florida is hoping to pick up where the Puritans left off in New England. Tommie Zito, an itinerant preacher who spends much of the year traveling internationally, has reportedly inked a deal with whiskey maven Raj Bhakta, who\u00a0told CBN News in March\u00a0he wanted to give away a $200 million college campus in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30687,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[4622,4482,10227,386,1983,1347,324,6537],"class_list":["post-30686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jesus","tag-campus","tag-christcentered","tag-defunct","tag-evangelist","tag-florida","tag-turning","tag-university","tag-vermont"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}