As a black woman, the Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin has faced institutional racism and gender prejudice both before and after she was ordained in 1994. So she believes that she has a better understanding of the dynamics of discrimination than many of her colleagues at the Lambeth Conference.

Hudson-Wilkin, who has been chaplain to the spouses’ conference, puts much of the current “squabbling” at Lambeth down to people’s insecurities. Last month, after a series of emotional debates, the ruling General Synod voted to consecrate women as bishops and approved drawing up a code of practice to reassure opponents. Women bishops have already been consecrated in Canada, Australia and the US.

Hudson-Wilkin, whose parish comprises two churches in a “tough patch” of East London, is a gently rising star. She was made the first black chaplain to the Queen earlier this year. The barriers around race and gender that she has overcome on her personal journey give her an informed yet optimistic outlook on the issues that have threatened to derail this year’s conference, which concludes tomorrow.

Despite an atmosphere of apparent harmony on the University of Kent campus, from the outset the conference in Canterbury has taken place in the shadow of schism over issues of sexuality and gender. Some 230 of the 880 bishops in the Anglican Communion stayed away. Many of the absentees were conservative evangelicals who object to the ordination of homosexual and female clergy.

The history of the Lambeth Conference

Our historical guide traces the origins and issues that dominated the agenda at past Lambeth conferences

From the Times Archive, 1867

The first Lambeth Conference had its issues, but participants hoped future meetings would evoke the same fraternal spirit

• 1920 Conference: Birth Control

• 1958 Conference: Family Planning

• 1978 Conference: Ordination Of Women

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• Full coverage of Lambeth Conference 2008

• Articles of faith: Ruth Gledhill's blog

• Video: Archbishop of Canterbury on Lambeth 2008

“I’m concerned about the Church’s obsession,” says Hudson-Wilkin. “I’m not convinced this is biblical interpretation or the authority of scripture. Both regarding women and homosexuals, we find it difficult to say what we believe. We wrap it up in theological clothing and that’s how we give it credence. In the Bible there is no difference between big and little sins. Sin is sin — it’s falling short of God’s glory.”

She says: “If homosexuality is such a terrible sin why was it not given any time in Jesus’s ministry? After all, he spoke about adultery and the need to love widows, orphans and the vulnerable.”

In response to the anti-gay wing who often cite verses such as Leviticus 18:22 (“You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; that is an abomination.”) as evidence that the Bible opposes homosexuality, Hudson-Wilkin highlights a passage in the Old Testament in which children who laugh at a prophet are stoned to death. “Are we to do that today?” she asks, throwing open her arms.

Caught between these competing strains is the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. How does he cope? Hudson-Wilkin says: “He is in good spirits; a wise, prayerful man, which is just what we need. The Church of England is blessed with two amazing archbishops. We don’t need hotheads who think they’ve got a hotline to God. That’s dangerous.”

Brought up in Jamaica, Hudson-Wilkin sensed a clear calling to God at 14. Her local parish church backed her all the way, she says, sending her off, aged 18, to train for the Church Army in England in 1979 with “a sense of pride”.

In the 1980s she worked briefly alongside the now Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, when he was vicar at a church in Tulse Hill, South London. On April 20, 1998 (she recalls the exact date) Hudson-Wilkin became priest at Holy Trinity, Dalston, and All Saints, Haggerston, both in Hackney.

“Some members struggled with me. They had been told that no priest worth anything would want to come to Haggerston. On top of that I’m a woman and black.”

So how did she deal with this antipathy? “I’m comfortable in my skin, so it was clear to me from the start that it was their problem, not mine.” Although she recalls reaching a point when she pounded her fists on the pews and cried: “What you really want is a white male priest. But I will not be ignored in my own church.”