Few things can make my blood boil faster than stories of wanton corporate greed. It boils especially hot when the story involves a pharmaceutical company.

The recent story published by Forbes Magazine about Mylan Pharmaceutical, the predominate maker of the EpiPen, raising it’s prices on the injection apparatus that measures out a calibrated dosage of the life saving drug epinephrine, by 400%. To put that in real dollars and cents terms, a single EpiPen skyrocketed from about $90.00 to about $600.00, leaving many people and families having to make a choice between paying for the EpiPens or other life necessities. Some have no real choice at all as they simply will not be able to afford them. And remember, we are just talking about the delivery apparatus, not the drug itself. A dosage of epinephrine costs about $1.00.

But the truly egregious part of this all too familiar story is that the company’s CEO, Heather Bresch, during this same period of time has enjoyed a salary increase of more than 670%. Let that figure roll around in your head for a moment…six-hundred and seventy percent.

As a person of faith, I find this sort of story deeply offensive and a matter of moral and spiritual importance. Both the Old and New Testament of the Bible are rife with crystal clear teachings about greed and the making of profits at the expense and certainly to the detriment of the least of these…in this case, those who depend on EpiPens for their very lives.

When I see stories like this, I can’t help but wonder where the Church is in all of this? Why are we silent on matters such as this that are so clearly and unambiguously addressed in scripture, yet so vocal and almost militant on some others that even the most conservative theologian would have to admit are somewhat vague and unclear when it comes to how those issues are actually addressed in scripture?

Could it be that the Americanized brand of Western Christianity has become so enslaved by the false gods of materialism and consumerism that we are no longer shocked, or even mildly alarmed when we see stories of such arrogance and avarice? Could it be that the American church — to a large extent — has adopted unbridled capitalism and free enterprise as some sort of Biblical value to be evangelized?

This ought not to be.