“In it purest form theology translates as the study of God. Lewis certainly did that”
No, you’re actually more correct here:
“and communicated his conclusions to n a way that has touched millions. One does not need a formal degree to be a theologian”
Lewis was not a theologian. He was a great explainer of Christian principles. He didn’t arrive at any of those principles so to speak. He just did an amazing job of explaining them. In other words, Aquinas was a great theologian. Lewis was the kind of man who took what Aquinas (more usually great Anglican divines) learned and made it easier for people to understand. Still, there’s a reason why Chris Mitchell of the Wade Center warns people that CS Lewis gained his understanding of virtue from Aristotle and not Aquinas.
In any case, Protestants should always be careful when praising Lewis. After all he believed in Purgatory and most of them don’t.
I didn’t say he got everything right! He was wrong on purgatory but so are a great many others. That does not diminish the power of his teaching on other things
Lewis was a protestant, seems odd they've have a problem with praising of their own.
Most of them don't agree with him on Purgatory, so what? You can't get a majority of protestants to agree on anything besides the Catholic Church is wrong. Put a random group of protestants from all different churches in a room together and probably the only "consensus" they could reach is that the Bible is the word of God and Jesus was divine. And probably even a handful of self-proclaimed "protestants" would disagree on the latter two points.