There's a crisis in South Africa.

White South Africans, especially the Afrikaners, face perhaps the greatest threat to their existence in centuries on the continent after South African president Jacob Zuma recently came out in support of confiscating white-owned property without compensation.

There are well-founded fears of "genocide" against white South Africans amid reports of surging crime, especially against farmers. And white South Africans face even more race-based laws and regulations than existed under apartheid, driving minority white South Africans out of the economy and forcing many into squalid squatter camps.

Christian missionary Charl van Wyk saw the hate directed against the Christian Afrikaners with his own eyes in 1993 when terrorists burst into St. James Church and killed 11 people. Van Wyk opened fire with his own sidearm, startling the terrorists who expected nothing but unarmed victims, and causing them to flee.

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He recounted his experiences in "Shooting Back: The Right and Duty of Self-Defense."

Now, he is calling for a spiritual awakening among his people, the Afrikaners.

"It was not language or country of origin which primarily dominated Afrikaner identity – for there were Dutch, German and French speakers," van Wyk said of the Afrikaners. "Nor was it his geographical position, as they were living across the Cape, Orange Free State, the Transvaal Republic and the Republic of Natalia. The Christian faith is what distinguished the Boer. The further the Afrikaner has moved away from his love and relationship with his God of the Bible and focused on land, language and skin color, the more his Christian identity has been eroded. The most important historical attribute of the Boer (Afrikaner) was the fact that he was Christian!"

One of the most important milestones in the history of the Afrikaner people was the Battle of Blood River, a struggle between a few hundred "Voortrekkers," or pioneers, and between 15,000 to 21,000 Zulus in 1838. Before the battle, the Afrikaners took a vow to God to build a church if He would give them victory. The Voortrekkers won the day and the "Day of the Vow" became a central element of Afrikaner nationalism.

Van Wyk believes it is Christianity that defines his people and holds out the prospect of uniting the varying ethnic groups in South Africa.

"The fight in South Africa is mostly now a war of worldviews," he said. "Christian Boers and their Christian tribal brothers and sisters have more in common, and are doing much to put an end to the racial hatred and animosity used by politicians to further their race-based political agenda."

Terrorists burst into a house of worship. The lives of your family and friends are at stake. What will you do? How will you react? Will you have the courage to shoot back? A survivor of one of the worst terrorist attacks in history shares his incredible story in "Shooting Back," now available in the WND Superstore.

However, he acknowledges South Africa is moving in the wrong direction, with increasingly socialist policies and a government that seems unable or unwilling to confront violent crime.

"Economically, South Africa can end up like Zimbabwe as long as its leaders pursue their communist economic philosophy, which is crippling us," he told WND. "Bloomberg's Misery Index, which combines countries' 2017 inflation and unemployment outlooks, has South Africa at No. 2.

"There is hope politically as we've seen in the last elections when voters ousted the communist-inspired ruling party from several metropolitan cities. Yet, on the other end of the scale recent statistics show that one farm attack happens every day in South Africa. Farmers say they're under siege, yet the government ignores their plight. Crime is out of control and a threat to South Africans of all ethnic groups."

The security crisis is exacerbated by the strict gun control imposed by the country by the African National Congress' government and the breakup of the collective self-defense organizations, the commandos, which once guarded farmers.

"Many South Africans are still armed, although the government has worked hard, and is relentless, in trying to disarm law-abiding citizens," said van Wyk. "It is difficult for a wicked government to wipe out tens of thousands of citizens opposing them, when those citizens are armed and prepared to defend themselves."

Van Wyk points to the nightmare scenario in Zimbabwe, where whites were ethnically cleansed and famine gripped the entire country, as the possible consequence of a successful disarmament policy by the South African government. However, he does not believe the South African government is capable of such an action.

"Zimbabweans were disarmed by the Mugabe regime," van Wyk observed. "A Zimbabwe-like operation like the Gukurahundi killings carried out by Mugabe's Fifth Brigade between 1983 and 1987 and which killed tens of thousands of people, is unlikely with an armed populace in South Africa."

Still, the high crime and racial hatred directed against the Afrikaners raise the question of whether they still have a place in the country they largely created. Some have suggested a separate homeland for the Afrikaners. An all-Afrikaner town known as Orania, which has just over 1,000 people, exists in the Northern Cape. And Josh Gelernter at National Review suggested white South Africans could set up a "Singapore-style city-state" to ensure their physical safety.

Van Wyk is skeptical of such plans on practical grounds.

"Europe's post-colonial borders left many Africans gathered into countries that don't represent their cultural heritage, and this still troubles us today," he said. "It is a challenge if our Afrikaners, Asians, Coloureds, Zulus, Xhosas, Basothos, Bapedis, Vendas, Tswanas, Tsongas, Swazis and Ndebeles all desire their own homelands. If it is functionally possible for each ethnic group to acquire their own homeland, the actual practice of division would be difficult. This is not just a South African challenge – the continent of Africa's ethnic groups are many, and they don't tend to fall along the cleanest possible geographic lines."

However, van Wyk believes the Afrikaners do have a right to preserve their own identity and culture, especially as times grow worse for this Christian people.

"There is nothing wrong with South Africans loving their nation, their ethnic group," he told WND. "There is nothing wrong with defending their particular culture, identifying those who are trying to destroy it, and building their ethnic identity."

Terrorists burst into a house of worship. The lives of your family and friends are at stake. What will you do? How will you react? Will you have the courage to shoot back? A survivor of one of the worst terrorist attacks in history shares his incredible story in "Shooting Back," now available in the WND Superstore.