Seriously ?

Don’t confuse being straight edge with being Christian

Yeah, I agree, the two are NOT the same, but the Christians have co-opted the ‘style’ of straight edge, which is something that christianity does well.

Does anyone have any evidence that this assemblies have any useful effect on kids?

In my opinion, no. At leased not with high-school aged. Most high schoolers already have at leased started to realize what their beliefs are, and I think something like this only makes those who have already been absorbed into the christian view feel that there is something ‘cool’ about it. That’s my opinion, based off my experiences in high school (graduated in 03, so it wasn’t that long ago). Granted I was never in the ‘religious’ crowd…

Christian rock has been around for a long time. Never are considered legitimate artists, luckily (with the exception of bands like Creed, that came on the scene as new-aged rock band [horrible], that later showed their true colors). One of my favorite parodies, is the South Park where Cartman starts a christian rock band to try to go platinum, only to find that christian albums can only go frankincense and myrrh

I have hazy memories of some kind of Ted Nugent multi-media circus that inspired much eye rolling and sarcasm when I was in high school. I think I also saw at least one professional football player work off his community service by pointing out that drugs are bad. Of course maybe I just wasn’t their target audience. They did not rate as adults I took seriously.

They weren’t any more effective in a religious context either. I was religious and still am, and usually left things like that with burning desire never to be associated with those nut jobs.

So they’re like straight-edge

Whoa, be careful. You may offend some straight edgers (if any actually exists anymore). Straight edge was ‘created’ in the early 80’s, pretty much by Minor Threat, a group that was in no way christian. In a time when the punk movement was literally killing itself with heroin, Ian Mackaye sought to make music with the anti-establishment roots of Punk without the need of drugs and alcohol. He succeeded, though the band fell apart fairly quickly (although the comp minor threat is considered a classic in the first wave punk rock genre). Ian went on to form Fugazi, a more indie, less abrasive band, with the same general message

and on another note, sneaking evangelism into schools is fucking vile.