4 Matthew J. Walton and Susan Hayward forms of interethnic and interreligious bias have expressed themselves as groups debate the nature of the democratic reform, questions of inclusion in the national community, and the country’s overall direction. Decades of authoritarianism and violent conflict have left entrenched wariness, if not outright fear and hostility, between different groups, which has created major barriers to collaborative efforts to promote peace and reform Who will profit and who and fueled communal tensions and viowill be left behind in the lence. At the root are concerns about who will profit and who will be left behind in the midst of vast changes? midst of these vast changes. These emerging anxieties and conflicts make visible the political, social, and psychological challenges to the creation of religious pluralism in the current Myanmar context, as well as the urgent need for efforts to promote and protect peaceful religious and ethnic coexistence. The country’s ability to move forward successfully in its democratic reform depends on it. Demographics and Interethnic/Religious Relations A fundamental dynamic of the current context is the country’s long and complex history of ethnic-based conflict. The 2014 census has indicated that Myanmar’s overall population is 51.4 million (BBC 2014), and the country is home to 135 officially designated ethnic communities, although that number is disputed and likely misrepresents the complex ethnic diversity in the country. The majority ethnic group is the Burmans, with approximately 68 percent of the population. Other major ethnic groups include the Shan (9 percent), Karen (7 percent), Rakhine (4 percent), Mon (2 percent), and Kachin (1.5 percent). Many of these non-Burman groups live in outlying states that border neighbors Bangladesh, India, China, and Thailand; speak their own languages; and have cultural practices distinct from the Burmans. Theravada Buddhism is the religion of the Burman ethnic majority and of many non-Burmans, and is practiced by about 89 percent of the overall population. Some ethnic minority groups, including the Karen, Kachin, and Chin, have sizeable or even majority Christian populations; the overall percentage of Christians in the population is 4 percent (mostly Baptist). Muslims comprise 4 percent of the population, and the remaining 3 percent are practitioners of