I just read this to our daughter, who has read ALL the Narnia books, and she's wondering which books Pullman was reading to come up with his ideas. But then she said that you couldn't expect much else from a man who writes Gnostic fantasy. She has read Pullman's trilogy called "His Dark Materials", and he is quite antagonistic toward religion in general, and God in particular.
"Quite antagonistic"? That's an understatement. I've never read any "children's book" as full of hate and lies and rabid anti-God idiocy as the last of Pullman's trilogy.