I was thinking today about the Lockhart/Pullman thing; if it is intentional, I wonder whether McPhail, the Scottish zealot who tries to hunt down Lyra in the His Dark Materials books, was Pullman returning the favour. Though that's probably a bit far-fetched.
Hell, any story that includes an element of philosophy or fantasy is going to include some sort of Christian symbolism. It's infected the Western world to such an extent that what people think up as a way to add mystical elements (or whatever) to their stories will have some resemblance to what they were indoctrinated into thirty years earlier...
Yeah, and there was a lot of Christian symbolism in _The Matrix_ as well. Big fucking whoopee.