Social Protest or Social Pest?

Today on campus here at ASU, there was a man praising the word of the Christian God, calling on college students to repent in their promiscuous ways. Surrounding the man as he spoke was a collection of college students that would either listen or argue back at him about the topics under consideration. When I was at Chico State in California, the same sort of thing would happen. There, a group would come out with sandwich boards dictating the fate of the binge-drinking students. Because of sex, drugs, alcohol and a host of other things, everyone was damned.

I wonder how effective this is as a form of social protest. Do they expect everyone to suddenly toss aside their lifestyles and convert? It seems to me that, if anything, this sort of social action is more likely to cause damage to the Christian movement rather than support. I would think that the individuals watching would write this man or the other group off as an extremist and disregard the whole performance.

Any thoughts?