Piper generated several linked story sets, one of which is the "paratime" set. Paratime is, essentially, a multiverse and there is a prime civilization that has figured out how to slide between realities and governs all of the rights to mine, etc all of the various realities in a variety of ways.
Temple Trouble deals with an isolated incident in which a troublesome world is only marginally controllable by religion and the paratime people from the prime world who are trying to exploit the world for resources that the world is not using and probably never will due to the divergences in its sociological development.
This is one of several stories I have encountered in which religion is portrayed solely as a means to control the population. It does pose some interesting questions, one of which it does very overtly toward the end.
This story, while familiar in a lot of ways and somewhat predictable (but it might not have been when it was written and published) is still a worthwhile read and I was most entertained as I "read" it in the car.
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