School courses in the basics of religious cultures introduced recently into the Russian federal curriculum raise many questions: how and in what way religion can be taught in secular school; whether the course should be monoconfessional or based on comparative religious studies; what its goal should be teaching about religion or an invitation to religion; whether the course should be chosen with respect to ethnic background or whether it can be optional; whether it should be a short course or an extensive one covering the entire educational period; what the content of the textbooks should be; and precisely what values should be discussed and what the results of such an education should be. This article analyzes new textbooks covering the basics of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish cultures. It is shown that in contrast to their declared emphasis on culture, many textbooks invite users into religion. The author argues that the textbooks in «Foundations of Orthodox Culture» are closer to indoctrination than textbooks in other religious cultures. This is a result of stricter control of the ROC over the whole process. Indeed, nowadays the ROC is more interested in a growth in the number of believers than in churches, whereas the Muslims badly need mosques rather than new believers.