If you've ever watched Neon Genesis Evangelion, you might have noticed certain imagery. (If you haven't, watch it!). Here's a great quote on the subject:
There are a lot of giant robot shows in Japan, and we did want our story to have a religious theme to help distinguish us. Because Christianity is an uncommon religion in Japan we thought it would be mysterious. None of the staff who worked on Eva are Christians. There is no actual Christian meaning to the show, we just thought the visual symbols of Christianity look cool. If we had known the show would get distributed in the US and Europe we might have rethought that choice.
-Kazuya Tsurumaki
If anything, I would say that we are far more sensitive to these types of issues. But that's a good thing!
That's the same way we use ninja in western pop products. Or dervishes. Or paladins. Frankly i don't understand why they should have reconsidered (and I honestly think he were not really thinking what he said anyway). They just took what they were interested in and made a story out of it. Nobody was directly offended.