State (religious life)

In Christianity, the word state may be taken to signify a profession or calling in life. St. Paul says, in I Corinthians 7:20: "Let every man abide in the same calling in which he was called".^[1] States are classified in the Catholic Church as the clerical state, the religious state, and the secular state; and among religious states, again, we have those of the contemplative, the active, and the mixed orders.^[2]

In Christianity, another use of the term state is a person's standing before God. Catholic theology and Evangelical Lutheran theology both teach that through the committal of mortal sin, an individual falls from the 'state of grace'.^[3] Both Catholicism and Evangelical-Lutheranism teach that through the sacrament of absolution individuals may be restored to the 'state of grace'.^[4][5]