Sir – The Bishop of Oxford’s call for a less materialistic society (Business, January 29) is well made, but his exhortation for us to question our spending comes at an inappropriate time.

Perhaps through the limitations of an interview, he also fails to probe the roots of materialism, wise though many of his reflections are.

It is the wrong moment to query personal spending because in a time of recession those of us who can afford it ought to maintain our spending (not necessarily on ourselves) for the good of others. In a recession every reduction in spending produces an increase in unemployment.

Governments need to make up lost demand by deficit expenditure, bringing forward investment projects etc, but the effect of this will be blunted if consumers who can afford to maintain expenditure instead tighten their belts, as the Bishop, and many others, rather suggest they should. We should also remember poorer nations. Dwindling Western purchases of goods from China are already causing large-scale unemployment there.

Looking to the longer term, we need to look at the underlying causes, chief amongst which is advertising, which steadily pushes us towards consumerism, and away from better goals — distorting our whole culture.

What is needed is a radical restriction of advertising, especially by adopting other means of financing television and the Internet.

Rather than espousing the ‘realism’ or ‘moderation’ that the Bishop misattributes to Christ, could he not denounce advertising with something of Christ’s radicalism?

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s strong endorsement of the new Children’s Society report, A Good Childhood, which advocates restriction of advertising directed at impressionable children, does indeed take the Church in the right direction. I hope it will go much further.

Edmund Gray, Iffley