John Piper to the emergent types: a deep affection

The Desiring God 2006 Conference audio is up and it’s free. In the introduction to his message, John Piper speaks directly to those attending the conference who are emerging:

My guess is that there are a lot of emergent types here who are quietly watching, looking, and came to see what we would say. I think what I want to say to you is that my son Carston turned 34 yesterday. That’s give or take within a year of Mark Driscoll’s age. So I’m aware that I am old enough to be the father of probably half the people in this room, including those of you who aren’t seeing it our way.

The way I want you to hear this is that I have known, I have tasted, what it’s like to have a son who is not where I wanted him to be, and still be his father, deeply his father. And that’s kind of the way I feel about all of you. A lot of you are not where I want you to be, and I can still feel a very deep affection for you. So I want that to be the feel of this morning’s talk.

Update: He says emergent in his talk; Stephen Shields wonders if he is making a distinction between emerging and emergent? My sense is no, he is not using it to refer to the Emergent organization – but I could be wrong.