Of Gods, Economics, and Power

"Economics and power have always played a large part in the championing of new deities throughout human history. The struggle for authority in early human society with its prize of material advantages, social prestige and the establishment of an elite has been nowhere so intensely marked as in the function of religion, perpetuating itself in repressive orthodoxies, countered by equally determined schisms. 

In the exploration of man's images of essence-ideal, fashioned in the shape of gods, we cannot afford to jettison our cynical faculties altogether. Adapting The Bacchae of Euripides quite... for a production--The Bacchae is of course the finest extant drama of the social coming-into-being of a semi-European deity--I found it necessary to emphasise this impure aspect of the priesthood. 

There is a confrontation between King Pentheus who is properly opposed to the presence and activities of the god Dionysus in his kingdom, and the seer Tiresias who is already an enthusiastic promoter of the god. Here are a few lines from King Pentheus's denunciation:

This is your doing Tiresias; I know

You talked him into it, and I know why.

Another god revealed is a new way opened

Into men’s pocket, profits from offerings,

Power over private lives - and state affairs –

Don’t deny it! I’ve known your busy priesthood
Manipulations.

Wole Soyinka (1976: 12-13), Myth, Literature and the African World