the pca includes representation from all the historic reformed branches of presbyterianism. the pca's founding churches came out of the southern presbyterian church, which included revivalists, old siders, classic ‘princeton’ old schoolers, conservative new schoolers, and others. in 1982 the pca merged with the reformed presbyterian church, evangelical synod, which itself was the product of a union between the ‘new light’(new side) reformed presbyterian church, general synod, and parts of the bible presbyterian church (the pietistic new school). in addition, many evangelical congregations that had lived within the mainline presbyterian churches, both north and south, left as individual churches and joined the pca. in short, the pca has been formed with churches and leaders from many different branches—old school, old side, new school.