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>> [...] If you are a Baptist, you owe the tenets of your denomination to John Smyth, who launched it in Amsterdam in 1605. [...] If you are a traditional Roman Catholic, you know that your Church was founded in the year 33 A.D. by Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Most would argue that Christ founded the Christian church, not the Catholic church (a subset of Christianity). As a Baptist, I trace my church lineage to 33 A.D. just as you do. The fact that we separated from Catholicism does not necessarily mean we abandoned the church founded by Christ.

We simply disagreed with some of the fallible men that have run that church since Christ’s resurrection, and thus believe that the Catholic church departed from Christianity in some respects in the interim.

SnakeDoc

...and thus believe that the Catholic church departed from Christianity in some respects in the interim.

So there is an objective standard for "Christianity," from which one can depart? Good! Please point-out for us which group of Christians, known in the historical record, practiced, in your opinion, the full and error-free "Christianity" available after the death of the last Apostle and before October 31, 1517. No hodge-podge of denominations or mixing and matching between centuries, please. One group, evidently, was the banner- or reference-standard all of these centuries, if, in fact, "Christianity" is internally defined in a palpable way as you indicate. So, which group would that be, shown to have continuous existence from A.D. 33 and able to transmit the one and only, authentic "Christianity"?

Yes. The big difference is ecclesiology (at least in this question.) On the one hand we have the "invisible" church notion. It's kind of Platonic, I guess. If I can say it properly, there are all these groups, identifiable by customs, administration, blah blah. We loosely call them churches and denominations and such. And Baptists are kind of a meta group, as are, in this view, Catholics. And SOME members of these groups are in the REAL and invisible Church. Our side is more Aristotelian. We say that there is one thorough or complete instantiation of Churchness and it comprises all the saints in heaven, those in purgatory, and all the Baptized on earth. BUT the "fullness" of Church subsists in those in communion with the bishop of Rome - NOT because he's in Rome but because he is, we think, the successor of Peter.

And this fullness does not in itself prevent various individuals from being dopes and sinners, including the occasional (or even frequent) dope and sinner who becomes Pope. But if you look (we'd say) not at the individual but at the teaching, the sacraments, blah blah, of what for shorthand I will call "Rome" you'd be looking at the real deal. So we have "wheat and tares together sown" and separated at the harvest. And the other view has wheat and tares sort of physically or phenomenologically together, but not REALLY together. Or that's the best I can do. All this is me just trying to get to an objective presentation of the difference in view, NOT to persuade or argue. My wife also thinks I talk too much.

Most would argue that Christ founded the Christian church, not the Catholic church (a subset of Christianity).

Most would then be wrong. The Christians of Antioch, where they were first called Christians, were a part of the "universal" Church. The term catholic means universal. By the 1st Century, the Church Fathers (leaders of the existing and growing Christian Church) were writing to each other about the catholic/universal/Catholic Church.

The Didache: The Lord's Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations.

Eusebius of Cæsarea [260-c.341], the "Father of Church History": Church History

Bardesan[154-222]: The Book of the Laws of Various Countries

But I could quote a thousand times a thousand proofs and you would still believe as you do. So, don't go to this page to read from the writings of some who were with Jesus or who were disciples of those and who interchange the terms Christian Church and Catholic Church because in the first thousand plus years, the terms meant the same thing.