The purpose of Jesus is to show us what we're supposed to do to fix our sinful selves and take Gods place on His throne, just like Jesus fixed His sinful self and took His Fathers place, just like His Father fixed His sinful self and took HIS fathers place. According to Joseph Smith this actually happened one more time. That's right, in addition to bootstrap levitating Himself into divinity, Jesus is not only the Son of God, but the grandson and great-grandson of previous Gods that the three Abrahamic religions never got around to mentioning in their holy books--which is why we need the Book of Mormon.

Curiously, those OTHER books do mention someone telling man he should assume Gods abilities and take His place as ruler of heaven, but IIRC attempting that isn't exactly affirmed as CHURCH DOCTRINE.

I know Mormons who are Christians--despite the worst efforts of the LDS, whose doctine is not in any sense Christian. You have to really back the leaders into a corner to get them to admit what they REALLY teach (which seems closer to Gnosticism than anything else), but . As noted above, despite all the other differences between the Roman Catholics, Protestants and Eastern Orthodox churches (differences so deep that Protestantism derives their name from them, and the "Great Schism" between the Greek and Roman church happened about 1000 years ago), they ALL accept and affirm the Nicene Creed that Mormon church doctrine explicitly rejects. The Mormon church, at a doctrinal and hierarchical level, is about as Christian as a Hasidic Jew--but a lot less open about that fact.

Understand, this is America and people can believe whatever the heck they want, but when they actively conceal those beliefs and represent them as something else, while tracking the families of everyone on Earth they can nail down and actively seeking ever more secular power, it concerns me, as much about what I don't know as what I do. When a descendant of one of their "patriarchs" (which really is practically royalty) and leader of a dozen congregations (who's widely noted for being vague and inconsistent when pressed on what he affirms in general) parlays that into a bid to run the nation it worries me greatly.