Sacred & Secular Belief (Or, Why I Am Not a Democrat) Part 1

Note: this is part one of an indefinite amount of posts. This entry will, hopefully, represent the bulk of what I post here, in that it is a place for me to sound out my thoughts, which are so often in-process. This will be something more akin to a stream-of-consciousness essay.

I find that I have two belief structures--my sacred beliefs, or theology, and my secular beliefs, or philosophy (for lack of a better word). Often, these two structures are in conflict with one another, particularly when it comes to the arena of politics, or more appropriately, state government.
As a Christian, I gather the majority of my theological beliefs from my interpretation of the Bible. My political beliefs, however, seem to come from a different stream (though not entirely unrelated). Yet I have this nagging guilt that the Bible ought to be the source of my governmental and political philosophy, even though I'm doubtful of how much it speaks directly to this, outside of theocracy. If I'm to be a good Christian, shouldn't I get all of my beliefs, including my politics, from Scripture?
If I were to draw a straight line from Scripture to politics, paying special attention to the words of Jesus (the red letters), I think that I would, like many progressive evangelicals (esp. Emergent), be a Democrat, or at least politically liberal. However, I'm not convinced that there is a straight line to be drawn from Scripture to state government. Jesus didn't tell us to put our hope in elected (or non-elected, as in so much of the world) leaders. He merely told us to obey and respect them. Paul even goes so far as to say that it would be best for us to live quiet lives in respect to the state.
Despite what I'm hearing from certain circles of Christendom, Jesus was not a political activist. He did not seek, like Judas Maccabees or Simon ben Kishoba (sp?), the usurpation of occupying governments. He did not seek the restoration of political Israel. (However, I do believe that he sought and achieved the restoration of Israel {and of all the world} through the forgiveness of sins.) Jesus was not a rebel, in the political sense; and I truly believe that this ought to influence our hermeneutic, particularly of these "red-letters." If Jesus was not a political activist, and if he did not offer salvation through political, governmental, or state means, then we ought to be wary of giving his words a political application. In other words, we ought not apply our sacred beliefs through secular means.

I'll try to sort out the implications of this thought in a post soon.