There’s also a relevant quote from Wikipedia article on Actraiser:

According to Douglas Crockford’s Expurgation of Maniac Mansion, Nintendo of America had a strict policy regarding game content in the early 1990s, especially in regards to material that could be deemed offensive, a blanket category that prohibited the inclusion of any overtly religious themes or plotlines in a game.

Nintendo of America may not have been consistent, but they were definitely over-strict for some games.