Reports of a new Christian college planned for the Northeast raise questions every believer should ask before celebrating or condemning. What follows is an analysis built on the claims as they were submitted to us, tested against Scripture rather than headlines. Where facts couldn’t be independently confirmed, we say so plainly. Our aim isn’t to tear down a man we haven’t met; it’s to model the discernment God commands whenever a new teaching institution seeks the trust of His people.
The Claims on the Table
Tommie Zito identifies himself as an evangelist. According to the submission we received, he has purchased a college campus and intends to open a Christian college in August of 2027. The same submission reports that his ministry website displays no Statement of Faith. We have not been able to independently verify these details, and we will not pretend otherwise; readers should treat them as reported claims awaiting confirmation rather than settled fact.
But the questions they raise do not depend on the particulars of one man’s ministry. Whenever a new institution asks for the trust, the tuition, and the children of God’s people, the church is right to ask what it believes, where its theology comes from, and what fruit that theology has borne elsewhere. That is not suspicion. That is stewardship.
Why a Missing Statement of Faith Matters
He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. [Titus 1:9]
A Statement of Faith is not bureaucratic boilerplate. It is the doctrinal equivalent of a foundation inspection, and Scripture treats it as a matter of fidelity, not formality. Paul charged Timothy to keep “the pattern of the sound words” [2 Timothy 1:13], and he made the ability to state and defend sound doctrine a qualification for spiritual leadership. A confession tells the watching church what a ministry will teach, what it will not tolerate, and what it will do when a teacher drifts.
An evangelistic ministry might argue that its work is simple gospel proclamation. A college cannot make that argument. A college exists to teach, and teaching requires content — a doctrine of God, of Scripture, of salvation, of money, of suffering. If the report is accurate and no Statement of Faith is published, the first and fairest question for Tommie Zito is simple: what will this college teach, and why is that not in writing?
Silence about doctrine is rarely neutral. Sound teachers tend to publish their convictions eagerly because they’ve paid for them in prayer and study. When a ministry won’t say what it believes, it’s usually either unsettled or unwilling—and neither is a foundation to build a college on.
Where the Theology Comes From
The “Word of Faith” movement traces largely to E. W. Kenyon, whose teaching blended Christian vocabulary with metaphysical ideas circulating in the late nineteenth century, and to Kenneth Hagin, who popularized positive confession — the notion that faith is a force, words are containers of that force, and the believer can speak health and wealth into existence. Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Hagin and others built media empires on the framework. From it flows the familiar prosperity package: sickness and poverty are treated as failures of faith, financial “seed” sown into a ministry is said to obligate God to a harvest, and the cross is presented as securing not only forgiveness but a right to affluence now. Wherever Zito’s own theology actually lands — and that is precisely what an absent Statement of Faith makes impossible to establish — this is the stream the submission fears, and the fear is not irrational.
What Scripture Actually Promises
But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. [1 Timothy 6:9-10]
Paul, in the same chapter, describes false teachers as “imagining that godliness is a means of gain” [1 Timothy 6:5] — a sentence that could serve as the prosperity gospel’s epitaph. Peter’s warning is more pointed still: false teachers will arise from within, “and in their greed they will exploit you with false words” [2 Peter 2:3]. Against this stands the actual Biblical testimony. Job was righteous and ruined. Paul learned contentment in hunger as well as in plenty [Philippians 4:11-12]. Nearly every apostle died poor, and most died violently. And the prophet Habakkuk, staring at total economic collapse, gave the church its enduring answer to prosperity teaching:
Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. [Habakkuk 3:17-18]
God does promise to supply the needs of His people, and He often blesses generosity. But He nowhere promises affluence, and He explicitly warns that the craving for it destroys faith rather than proving it.
The cruelest edge of prosperity teaching is what it does to the suffering believer. It hands a grieving mother or a dying saint the verdict that their faith was defective. Scripture hands them Habakkuk’s song instead, and the difference between those two answers is the difference between a counterfeit and the gospel.
Voices of Warning
The submission asked for direct quotations from well-known Biblical teachers on the prosperity gospel, and for published comments about Zito specifically. We take accuracy seriously: we could not verify any published statements from recognized Biblical teachers addressing Zito by name, so we will not invent them, and we caution readers against outlets that would. The broader witness, however, is easy to summarize fairly. John Piper has said publicly and repeatedly that he hates the prosperity gospel because it obscures the surpassing worth of Christ and exports a deadly counterfeit to the world’s poorest churches. Michael Horton has long argued that it preaches the American dream in Christian dress. Costi Hinn, who grew up inside the movement as Benny Hinn’s nephew, has devoted his ministry since leaving it to warning believers away from what he experienced firsthand. Conrad Mbewe has chronicled the devastation prosperity teaching works among the poor of Africa. These men differ on plenty of secondary matters; on this one, they speak with a single voice.
Notice that the strongest critics named here aren’t outsiders sneering at faith. They’re pastors and former insiders who love the church enough to guard her. That’s the posture we want to model — and the one we’d urge on anyone evaluating this new college.
A College in the Northeast: Blessing or Threat?
So is this college good or bad for Biblical Christianity? The honest answer is conditional, and the condition is doctrine. If Tommie Zito publishes a sound confession, submits his teaching to Scripture, and trains students in the whole counsel of God, then believers in the Northeast — one of the least-churched regions in America — should rejoice at every new institution planted there. The region needs more gospel workers, not fewer.
If, however, the college becomes a pipeline for prosperity theology, the concern is serious and the stakes are generational. A crusade misleads a crowd for a night; a college misleads pastors, teachers, and missionaries for entire careers, and they in turn mislead congregations. Jesus said, “You will recognize them by their fruits” [Matthew 7:16], and an institution multiplies whatever fruit its theology bears. The burden of proof rests where it always rests: on the institution asking for trust. Until a Statement of Faith is published and its teaching can be examined, the Berean posture is the only faithful one — they received the word eagerly, “examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” [Acts 17:11].
Our confidence doesn’t rest in exposés, and it shouldn’t rest in alarm. It rests in the sufficiency of God’s Word, which has outlasted every counterfeit gospel yet preached. So pray for Tommie Zito — that if his theology is sound he would say so plainly, and that if it isn’t, God would grant him repentance. And examine everything, including what you read here, against the Scriptures. That habit, more than any warning we could print, is what keeps a believer safe.
Salvation – Eternal Life in Less Than 150 Words
Distributed by – BCWorldview.org
Editor Comment: Your call to test every new ministry against Scripture reflects the Berean spirit of Acts 17:11, and that discipline protects the flock far better than any headline. Centering the question on a missing Statement of Faith puts the focus exactly where it belongs, on what a school will actually teach.