The Newsweek magazine cover story Our Mutual Joy on the Bible and gay marriage that I highlighted on this blog (The Good Book and Gay Marriage) has won a 2009 Wilbur Award from the Religion Communicators Council.

Lisa Miller’s story prompted more than 100,000 e-mail responses and more than 2 million hits on the magazine’s Web site after it was published on Dec. 15.  It also won in the magazine category for the prize that recognizes outstanding work in the secular media.

My friend Bill Kellermann was asked to be one of the online commentators for Newsweek on “a faith-based debate on Scripture and what it says about Gay Marriage.” Bill  offered a lively and biblically in-depth exchange with Barrett Duke from the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. You can read it here.

The Wilbur Award judges said that Miller’s article is a fine example of the purpose of the Wilbur Awards, which is to recognize “excellence in the presentation of religious issues, themes and values.”